40K - THE DRUKHARI / DARK ELDAR - RACE OVERVIEW | Warhammer 40,000 Lore/History

today's video is brought to you by audible there are many reasons why order boy is a great service but most of all it can save you a lot on the newest 40k audiobooks you can start listening today with a 30-day audible trial get one audiobook and unlimited monthly audible Originals absolutely free visit audible.com /a Lewton at the end of this video I'll give some choices of audiobooks that I think you should listen to [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] there were some things in the great and vast darkness of the galaxy that for Humanity are best left unknown for others the pain inflicted by those most deplorable of creatures goes far far beyond the physical there are some within the Imperium who through no fault of their own are exposed to and understand the suffering inflicted by the darkness of the warp and the chaotic entities and beings that existed within that parallel space but they are not the only ones who carried darkness within them there are others who are in many respects equally depraved figures who live each day and every day to inflict suffering but not just pain not just tedious but now pain through physical agony no there were those who have made the suffering of others a culture in its own right whose citizenry bathe in the Distilled pain despair and agony of others they are diary otherwise known as the elder aspire to some house Salvage and then reclaim their lost glory and respect throughout the galaxy that also exists somewhere out there in the void their polar opposites and they are known to the Imperium as the Jakari or more crudely the Dark Eldar and for these lost souls unlike their brethren they have no such laudable aspirations instead they're content to wallow and saturate their minds in the darkness and nightmarish orgy of pleasure combined suffering that once first unleashed the thirsting God of slow NESH upon the galaxy the chaos God who in its violent birth obliterated the Eldar civilization as it was and brought an end to the age of strife where the proto dakari destroyed their own race in this moment they unwittingly enabled humanity to be reborn into a new age where the emperor of mankind would rise to power and his warriors step out to dominate the galaxy as part of a new Imperium of man unlike the vast majority of the elder though some saw the horror that lay on the horizon and made preparations accordingly others were lucky enough to find themselves protected by coincidental alignment of perverse necessity this is the story of those depraved beings for today we will learn finally about the Dark Eldar now the obvious place to begin is strangely enough at the beginning except I've already talked a length about the first origins of the elder their early history their mythology and how they're able to assert dominance over the galaxy if you wish to learn more see my dark origins part 2 video which is linked at the end of this one also people often ask questions like what would the elder doing for the many millennia that led up to the expansion of humanity during the Dark Age of Technology and the answer of course is this time is greatly clouded and very uncertain to us however we do have some glimpses and some understanding about this time it's possible though that similarly to the Tao and humanity the elder were in fact so arrogant in their great power that they underestimated humanity's ability to develop by the time they had noticed how powerful we had become there was little they could do about it no over documentation exists that point towards an elder human conflict during the Dark Age of Technology and as humanity existed at a much higher more developed plane of existence during this time it seems likely that they held a guarded but perhaps cordial interaction that was an elder shadow seer Larry El Rey who mentioned in an offhand comment that the elder had defeated the ancestors before the time of the Imperium but it was no more than that a dismissive provocative comment that could be taken as an off-the-cuff insult more probably than as a fact one thing to consider though is that in the time of humanity's rising the elder were probably already on something of a slide down and worked very preoccupied with this and far less interested in some focused sense of what other races were doing they considered them unimportant and most certainly not a threat I must as always point out that this is entirely my own speculation but as usual I feel it's reasonably logical of an assumption given what we know combined with no other substantially contradictory evidence the point being that the Elder were just for the longest time doing their own thing the warp had been locked away and that's another thing I need to talk about some more the necron we're sleeping and this left the elder with complete dominion across the galaxy like all empires they slowly over vast periods of time began to slide into a slower decadent more moral decay and that was a pony left on checked and by the time it had become established enough to be obviously offensive to many within Elder Society it was already too entrenched to do anything about it but the elder were truly masters overall like the humanity in the Golden Age they had very little to worry about their technology was so advanced they were able to basically print matter they had all manner of machines to do any kind of work which was required and on top of this they feared for nothing which you would expect from a race which were able to destroy planets and then rebuild them at will any enemy to their mind could be easily extinguished in fact discoveries have been made that suggest the elder during this golden period had developed their understanding of psychic power and how this can be channeled into the material realm they actually had developed technology whereby they were able to simply think of a thing and it would be born into existence and this could be say an infantry gravity anchor Titan a starship theoretically even an entire planet so they would connect themselves to this machine they imagine this thing and there it is now the power of this is obviously terrifying to even consider now if you want to read more about that specifically and I'll say thanks here to the community who helped me to pinpoint that as the book fist of demetrius because i knew i could remember it from somewhere but i couldn't remember that specific book this is where some Imperials find an ancient complex with a machine that allows things to be materialized seemingly out of thin air it's very interesting point to the law so it's worth looking up it's a good read the main thing though to understand is that the elder before the fall were an extremely advanced race both in mind spirit and physically they have senses far beyond a human they can move like a lightning fast and human eyes are barely able to perceive their emotions are so strong if a human had to try and process them it would either send them insane or they just break down into mental jelly now unbeknownst to the elder who had for millions of years existed with the warp as their source of power things were stirring in the immaterial dark things and it's important to remember that what feeds the warp of the most is excess of emotion so many people are quick to assume that the elder played a great role in creating the dark gods of chaos through the war in heaven and the best assumption about this is that this is not entirely untrue but it's also not accurate to say this definitively as just a default assumption the elder you see because they're extremely powerful emotions have always been aware of this having some level of destructive capability and so they learn to control this both in battle and throughout their lives another thing to remember is that when humans die their souls feed into the warp three four four the elder this was not the case Eldar souls are not the same as human souls and the elder would be reborn over and over so for them events like the war in heaven did not contribute billions and billions of souls to the warp and at the same time neither did the necron tyr because their souls were consumed by the coton so this is a fundamental error people make when they're assuming that the war in heaven created the chaos God when nearly every aspect of it appears to have been not that significant in contributing to the war now it undoubtedly will have had some effect of course because the coton were going around destroying planet however they were also feeding off of the souls of the living creatures there this is another mistake often people make when they say well the coton were destroying all these planets and it was destruction everywhere how could that not have fed into the war again because that was the whole reason why the katana attacking those primates was to siphon the soul and the energy of the living beings so that stuff didn't go into the war of course their suffering and anguish and all these other things did undoubtedly contributed and fed into the warp there but again where did it reach a tipping point how long did it take to reach the level where chaos gods became active we don't know this the point is that the elder up until the dawn of mankind would have certainly had some impact on the war but despite their powerful emotions it seems that this was less of an impact than when humans began slaughtering each other on mass and feeding souls directly into the warp and breeding like rabbits in the process while all humans with the exception of nulls have some psychic presence the elder of course have a powerful psychic presence because of their very nature and this means that from the warps perspective Eldar souls are white hot burning beacons whereas humans are merely tiny distant specks of light barely more than particles of dust picked out in a beam of light except that until the dawn of slash this had never really been that important but of course all that would soon change similarly to humanity in its golden age but perhaps even more so life for the elder the height of their power was beyond what you could describe as paradise their lives were without any kind of stress or trouble they held total dominion over the galaxy and they wanted for nothing they spent that time indulging entirely in creative pastimes be they artistic physical recreation mental speculative philosophical discussions literature their psychic manifestations dealt with everything and remembering that at this time most of aldur society was based on planets not in the crafts worlds that we see today they also had discovered and learned how to make use of the web way the vast system of psychic tunnels which exist outside of the material and immaterial an important side note to travel through the web way quickly requires psychic energy otherwise it would take much more time to traverse you can still travel through it but much like any psychic weapon to get the most power from it you need to imbue it with psychic energy otherwise it's just plain and not especially effective the web way was of course constructed by the old ones and the means of its construction and repaired taught to the elder it was believed that they had mapped it to a degree but this knowledge was deemed so great it is now only kept in the elder black library hidden deep in the web way it's route only known to a select few of their kind some even suggest the web way paths could also stretch forwards and backwards in time the elder themselves understood the danger of this and so never used these temporal aspects and there is more to discuss about that but we'll probably have to get to that another time the web way though enabled them to travel safely between their worlds never having to really use space or the warp and this is another thing people often don't think of when they say well how come the old I didn't conflict with humanity well for one reason because they weren't traveling with starships all around the galaxy and they weren't traveling with ships all through the warp like humanity had to do because they do of course have sublight speed ships but unlike other races who usually involve the warp to traverse those vast distances the Eldar have no need to do this because why would you travel in real space or warp space across these vast distances when you can just step through the web way and be there in a fraction of the time in total safety so this is one fairly simple reason as to why elder human interaction early on appears to have been very very minimal nothing mysterious or misleading about it they simply didn't encounter one another that often it's not to say that they never had conflicts or interaction but such awkward confrontations were clearly minimal otherwise the consequences would undoubtedly be more well defined even if you're allowing for the dark age and the age of strife one key factor as well is that it's not heavily established what kind of overarching societal structure existed in this pre four period one thing we do know is that it seems to have been relatively dispersed that is to say that it had something of a clan like culture this is played out as well by how this continues to this day and the craft worlds that Crawford elder I'd like to the same groups who existed during the pre fall elder culture in this cultural layout undoubtedly meant that similarly to our world and the fog which exists between countries in terms of just what is going on meant that as elder culture began to change it likely was not immediately clear that this was happening and even when things began to grow more extreme how much this would have been commented to other parts of the elder civilization as a whole is really unknown for the elder that lived now in the time of the Imperium this lifestyle of carefree indulgence and technology has been completely lost if you wanted a modern analogy that's actually pretty apt you might say that the elder in the 41st and 42nd millennia living lives effectively under psychic lockdown compared to where they were previously they are largely confined to their craft worlds they avoid interaction with other races other than their own as much as possible the elder lost so much because for one so many of their worlds were annihilated instantly at the birth of slash but also because much elder tech relies heavily if not exclusively on psychic power since their beginning the elder had bathed in the warp and focused all their attention on how to use this to build and develop their culture this is not something to be overlooked while the elder do understand science as do humans because they are an advanced race they never went through that same process of research and Industry and mechanical fabrication as humanity has in fact there probably are things that they don't understand which humans do they instead base their culture on race bone acai plastic based on war energy crafted by one a known as bone singers whereas the Imperium is based on Golden Age knowledge that is heavily science and mechanically focused the elder use psychic power and the walk for almost everything but because they're so weakened and fearful of attracting the attention of flourish this greatly limits them in terms of what they can use it's still a lot more than other races but nowhere near what they would have been doing pre fall and this is one reason why they are so hamstrung in the 41st and 42nd millenium and then of course we come to the Dark Eldar for the Dark Eldar things are very different essentially their fear of Sloan ash led to a very severe decline in the use of psychic power and this is then caused their ability to effectively if at all use psychic power to completely atrophy now as I said before it's not entirely clear what kind of power structure the elder had pre-fall they appear to have had some sense of an ability respected elders that seemed somewhat divided by what could be described as clans probably the best way to think of them is similar to the period of Greek city-states where there was no real central government but they were still informally united their specific areas were independent this seems to be somewhat of a reasonable comparison to pre for Elder it's likely that far back in ancient Elder history they were more united as a single people but over time they fragmented into specific areas doing their own thing basically they had much in common language collective history and so on and for the longest time there was really no need to form some huge overarching government because simply there was no need he usually have some kind of overarching structure to handle things and deal with threats and you know make some kind of collective decisions because it's necessary but the outer I didn't need this their lives were provided for and within their very specific region decisions were probably made by just a council of elders that's elders not Eldar it probably didn't need to be any more complicated than that and if it did they probably would have grouped up and come together but most of the time that was never necessary so as time progressed this fragmented structure probably made it more difficult for them to develop a consensus on how to avoid the problems that were beginning to occur in their society in the social sense and in all probability this probably actually made them far worse of a problem with some world starting to fall into ruin others had some sense of what might be coming but they didn't really see elsewhere what was happening and others were just in between so the Eldar have become grossly indulgent as a people but it's nothing more than that they just have become decadent and this then arguably inevitably leads many to begin craving such a lifestyle of excess and to use one of my always favorite close at hand quotes some elder factions or clans sought to become explorers in the further regions of experience that is to say they began experimenting with pain as much as pleasure and perhaps a combination of both as with all addictive vices this slowly began to spiral out of control those practicing such indulgence lost sight of things and became more and more perverse elder society was overall now rotting morally and ethically like some virus spreading through their culture some worlds were entirely consumed by this attitude others were less so but everywhere they had transitioned from lives of relatively innocent access and indulgence to now truly abhorrent and perverted acts that were intended to be extreme enough to satisfy the evermore desensitized senses of the slowly darkening elder in the beginning the core of Elder Society were not distinctly aware of what was happening because much of this slide into depravity was happening behind closed doors cults and strange societies were being whispered about in the streets we can imagine how such things can happen it begins with tentative conversations questions probing to see if you're a good fit for the group once Trust is gained you get an invite to a meeting and it's downhill from there over time these groups became more brazen they might publicly test the waters with their morally questionable activities seek to diminish it is extreme so that society slowly becomes numb and exhausted by these conversations about these groups and a little bit more and a little bit more and finally it's too late it would only be those who are known today as the exudates who started to understand early enough the direction things were headed in and you could very much consider them the Doomsday Preppers of the elder because they saw the writing on the wall I'm a basically like we're getting the hell out of here and began to retreat to worlds that were very much on the periphery of Elder Society and the galaxy selecting worlds to settle on where they could keep well out of the way of what was coming more than this though the exudates were also essentially doomed profits and as most doom profits are they were dismissed out of hand by the majority of society who just did not want to admit or even consider at such an early stage that they had a major problem on the horizon this was one of the weaknesses of the Eldar that their sheer unbridled arrogance and ego and as I often say it's all too commonly the nature of things that people never want to change a comfortable way of life and react to a situation until it is literally too late to do anything about it and you can take your pick of real-world examples because they're so readily available unfortunately these doom mongering cause of the exudates were brushed off as being either puritanical ranting or a disingenuous project of fear-mongering that would surely not come to pass the counter-argument of the Eldar pleasure cults would be a or what's the worst thing that can happen Russia now what came next was the beginning of a total breakdown in the Eldar civilization that saw there formally casually United world's become more and more polarized and this is when many began to see that things were not going in a stable direction and began advocating for an end to the excessive lack of self control that these dark pleasure cults were displaying and the other side of course pointing back ever more viciously screaming that they could do whatever they want and regardless what were they going to do about it anyway now you might have thought that this would be where a civil war could break out but it seems that the elder trying to avoid a further downward spiral understood that such a thing was not going to be helpful or improve the situation in any way plus is that's how things went down it was probably already then passed a point of that being able to constructively save the situation but arguments begin to break out more and more to try and rationalize things some despair about how their lives have no meaning because they no longer seek to move forward or struggle for anything and while those in the opposite camp would posit that it is in fact exactly their lives of extreme endless experience that must exist to honor those who could not have achieved such things before and that this was in fact entirely the pinnacle of lifestyle that they had always sought to achieve they were doing the right thing and they should embrace this and continue to push it forward as things continue to deteriorate though they of course become progressively worse you hear descriptions of the darker aspects of elder society no longer being satisfied with just pleasuring and experimenting among themselves this is where we begin to hear of the earliest gangs of the pleasure cults capturing innocence dragging them back to be preyed upon tortured for days or weeks or months in the most perverse and creative ways imaginable by now the exid i elder are long gone having abandoned their civilization believing it to be a completely lost cause this is also where we begin to see parts of elder civilization moving from their planets to resettle further out we also have the first guardians who strive to reinforce the traditional elder way of a more pure lifestyle but with violent actions if necessary but nothing really that amounts to more than just a vigilante action nothing more unified than this and then you begin to finally see the creation of craft worlds Basten's designed to house only those of pure spirit created out of a necessity as their worlds are now being ravaged by those individuals consumed by dark excess the craft worlds will of course in time become replacements for the broken worlds of the elder that now contained little more than the remnants of what wander and glory had come before as they begin to reach the end of days elder society is in a complete state of collapse many worlds are now in essence entirely consumed by nightmarish horror and dark cults who have turned the once glorious worlds of the elder into brutal hunting grounds ruined wastelands of suffering populated by deranged individuals who scavenged night and day in total desperation to feed their insatiable addiction to pleasure and suffering that they can now only indulge in by the most extreme acts to try and elicit any small sense of feeling the members of these dark cults have become basically numb to any feeling now be that pleasure or pain and this numbness and he pushes them further and further to imagine by what means can they possibly feel that rush that mental saturation of emotion and that only means to now achieve this is to enact in the truest sense the most unimaginable Horrors on their victims [Music] as the power of these dark cult continued to grow across the walls of the elder and as some of their activities became ever more extreme for whatever reason it was seen as being sensible to relocate into the web way and this move by some of these cults in what is still essentially the pre-fall toward the web way is what I'll simply referred to from here on as the Dark Eldar because they then begin to commandeer hidden ports and they set up strong holds a key web way junctions to ensure the security of their debased pursuits so this is important to understand because it can sometimes have a sense the decay of the Elder was a chaotic Anarchy where Psychopaths were just running wild and that's not entirely untrue however those at the higher level certainly had a more ordered sense of their debased pleasures in these darkened cult sneered Dark Eldar these web Way junctions and access points were all connected to a vast sprawling city constructed inside the web Way itself and this was the Eldar city of Kimura Kimura was originally the greatest of the web Way port cities just of the elder and it was able to transport a fleet to any of the most vital planets of the collective Empire by virtue of its many web way portals because of this access it granted to far-flung corners in a material it was seen as being the most important location in the entire web way as such it was too important for any singular state of the Eldar councils to control so it was instead operated on a more autonomous basis because of this it meant that suspect activities that might not have been possible under the formerly well-organized worlds of the Elder were far more possible here largely due to its high value as a hub within the web way Kimura inevitably expanded quickly in fact so much so that as it spread outward into the void it began to consume other web way port cities estates and sub realms grew up good larger and more impressive as it fed on and plundered resources all of this of course remaining largely unseen the self-serving Lords who at this time roared Kimora's dens of Vice glutton status alongside their adoptive City initiating more and more of the Elder into their shadowy depths it was much through necessity as it was need that became a place of focus for the dark cults of the elder Dark Eldar it suited their needs perfectly in every respect out of sight out of mind so when Sloan ash was finally born into the warp the psychic shockwave that consumed trillions of Elder and billions more besides tore reality asunder as the eye of Terror appeared upon the galaxy as a breach ripped between the material and immaterial whole star systems fell into orgies of horrific cannibalism and violence the majority of the outer race was wiped out in an instant no matter they were dark cultist sore pure elder trying to turn back the tide of despair all were consumed by a cataclysm of terror and pain many elder planets were either destroyed or violently sucked into the warp itself in its place now stood a maelstrom of chaos mr. Nash gorged upon the incomprehensible all-consuming agony of the artery and the warp storms that have plagued the galaxy would finally abate there was no force capable of constraining this event Salinas was such a powerful creation that it consumed the Elder Gods of their ancient mythology the few elder survivors were now left scattered across the galaxy and for the longest time in a deep shock unable to comprehend the true horror of what had befallen them most of all their inability to prevent it it deeply scarred their sense of superiority and invincibility but worse would be to come of course when they discovered that they were unable to be reborn as they always had been and were now to some degree mortal entities like the filthy monkey of humanity those souls of the elder obliterated by the birth of slash were now the captives of she who thirsts and they would endure endless suffering at its behest while slash extinguished the pure and the depraved alike who had inhabited real space this was not the case for those who remained in the web way however the birth of sir Nash was so powerful that psychic shockwaves were felt even in the web way and it suffered terrible damage from the blast that tore holes through it ruined some pathways forever and damaged l-dog constructs within it those who had established themselves in and around the area of the web way containing Kimora survived and suffered minimal if any damaged like the Crawford alder the exudates the Harlequins they had escaped the unbelievable horror of Senesh unlike many alder who continued to exist in real space the elder of Kimura felt no need for repentance or atonement they saw no need to alter their ways unlike the Puritan elder who even now were restructuring their civilization in developing new strict paths to follow these were alien concepts to a people who acknowledged no limit to their power or capabilities and soon enough they both the surviving elder and dark elder would discover there was a continuing dire problem for them they had both discovered to their horror that they were no longer able to be reborn through the warp as they had been for millions of years but for the Dark Eldar they discovered something even more disturbing now I don't want to go too heavy on this is what I originally write for the intro to this section then I script it out enough for an entire standalone video so instead I've tried to distill down the essence of what I originally wanted to say and that is a rough sense of the elder rebirth and their soul the form created a situation where the elder could no longer be reincarnated and secondary to that it's also important to note that it is clearly stated that Elder gestation takes considerably longer than that of what are referred to as lesser races be that other humanoids for the dakari for the Dark Eldar traditional true born children are extremely rare and something of a status symbol in their society in relation to this descriptions of a longer gestation is not clarified any further however my speculation is that given the fact this description points towards the possibility of it being very difficult to conceive it may be wonder if elder do not bear comparison to fictional worlds like children of men Handmaid's Tale where conception becomes very difficult as a species and children are valued extremely highly unlike those dystopian worlds perhaps this was not some devastating biological change for the Elder perhaps it was a naturally designed aspect of their race because we know that the elder are created by either careful design awesome general shoving the right by the old ones in the earliest period for the galaxy in the most ancient of times it seems the case the elder were able to just respawn in the warp this could be a reason why they didn't need normal or effective means of conception or perhaps it was even intentional to ensure that they didn't run rampant and become too big of a problem for the old ones who let's remember didn't plan on being exterminated by the nekron and Catan and when you think about this more there is some sense too that you design a powerful psychic race but you want them to work for you not against you so you enable them to be continually reborn and walk out of the warp but you don't want them procreating constantly as this could create some problems for you later when the old ones are destroyed and warp is cut off that low conception rate becomes a far bigger problem still this time for the elder is so shrouded it's very difficult to make solid conclusions and I'll expand on that further separately what we do know is that for Elder conception it's difficult and it takes a long time so they cannot easily replenish their race on top of that there are other issues because the fall allowed them the realization that if any elder died their soul would be consumed by Senesh but for the Dark Eldar it was much more than that they realized their souls were also being drained very slowly by slash because of the eldery intrinsic connection to the war itself and they found that it was leeching their soul energy if you will and this is where the soul stones or the spirit stones come in you see craft world elder do not seem to suffer this same soul drain effect that the Dark Eldar do but they do where spirit stones that protect their soul the idea being that should they die it will capture their soul into the spirit stone and this can then be placed within the Infinity circuit on an elder craft well which it's assumed is basically like a self-contained free for warp space of a sword it's an artificial place where the souls of dead elder a place to coalesce and remain safe in the darkness of the warp and slash and this is obviously an overview there's more detail to all of these elements now another reason why craft world Elder may be cautious about bearing children is that any elder including true born we'll need a new spirit stone to protect them from flesh and spirit stones cannot be just fashioned nor can they be repurposed they can only be found in one of the Crone worlds these are ancient elder planets which now reside either in the warp or the eye of terror so gathering spirit stones is not only extremely difficult it's also incredibly dangerous and even though the elder will often use wraiths to achieve this it's sometimes just more trouble than it's worth so without readily available spirit stones or even at best very few this isn't helpful to creating many new elder this is actually something very important to understand in relation to just elder in general that they can't just have suddenly millions of new children because it would be extremely perilous for those children were they to die without spirit stones all this really comes down to understanding that elder souls are different to most mortal races as I often say they're more powerful more enduring most importantly they're less directly connected they're seemingly able to detach from one mortal vessel and connect to another and this appears to be very much by design if they're ancient myths and legends of the Eldar origins have any truth to them at all but why am I talking so much about Crawford elder well because context you kind of need to understand that to understand Dark Eldar the Jakari suffered what is referred to as this soul drain or a spirit leech this means that they're constantly bleeding their life force to Sloane ash and this is one reason as to why the Dark Eldar are unable to use spirit stones as the Crawford elder do because this soul bleed seems to corrupt spirit stones it blackens them makes them unusable also spirit stones are usually given to elder when they're very young and it forms an extremely close connection to the elder soul they become one in the same in many ways so that the man is second their soul leaves the body it enters the spirit stone most Dark Eldar are by this point very old and to try and connect them with the spirit stone is not only extremely dangerous to them but it's also very unlikely to be successful so they just don't use spirit stones but with that said they do have other uses for them for example and incubi a warrior order of the Jakari whose sole goal is to kill as often as they can it's said that they as initiates must kill a craft world aspect war in single combat shatter their spirit stone and return it to their her Ark and this task is completed only then can they be fully inducted as an incubus the sundered spirit stone is rebuilt into a psychic torture device and is a tormentor and mounted to the Incubus chest where it exudes an aura of terror and malice that penetrates the minds of even the most dauntless foes the bottom line is that for one reason and another Dark Eldar do not use spirit stones in fact they have other means to return to life and not be captured by slash this also feeds into the understanding that Elder Souls like I say not like human souls they don't just fall like a drop of rain into an ocean Elder souls much more stable and persistent and independent entities they're almost like a permanent life force it's very difficult to extinguish and can be moved around but before we go any further what exactly is this soul leeching why does it appear to affect only the Jakari and not the Croft world elder well the answer is actually more complicated than you might think and this unfortunately is another thing that is not especially clear however I did remember that there is some reference to this in an older texts known as the introspections upon perfection by CAI Sandra's the anchorite the Croft world elder and it comes in three parts as follows life is to us as the maze of linen was to elfenesh its mysterious corridors leading to wondrous vistas and nightmarish encounters in equal measure each of us must walk the maze alone treading in the footsteps of those that came before but also forging new routes through the labyrinth of existence in times past we were drawn to the darkest secrets and ran wild about the maze seeking to experience all that it had to offer as individuals and as a civilization we lost our way and in doing so created the means for our doom unfettered exploration leading to the darkness of the fall in the emptiness that followed a new way was revealed to us the path through the wisdom of the path we spend our lives exploring the meaning of existence moving from one part of the maze to another with discipline and guidance so that we never become lost again on the path we experienced the full potential of love and hate joy and woe lust and purity filling our lives with experience and fulfillment succumbing to the shadows that lurk within our thoughts but like all journeys the path is different for each of us some wander for a long while in one place some spread their travels wide and visit many places for a short time while others remain for a long time to explore every nook and turn some of us lose our way and leave the path for time or forever and some of us find dead ends become trapped in the spring storms of youth it is common amongst our people to question the validity and indeed sanity of our ways most especially the pursuit of perfection in but one field of endeavor at a time the path as it is been called since our ancestors created it while the young are intellectually capable of studying the tragic lessons of the fall and the great enemy unleashed by our ancestors their view of the universe is too narrow to truly see the lessons intrinsic in the terrible events which destroyed our home worlds and drive forth our survivors to wander the Stars it is true of all that in youth there is great bravery and great foolishness in equal measure and abiding belief that no obstacle is too great to overcome no foe too mighty to defeat no problem so complex that it cannot be solved conversely it may be said that those who survive the galaxy's tumult for long enough come to believe that all obstacles foes and problems may not be resolved only allayed for a brief sliver of history which in turn is but an instant in the slow dance of the universe thus it is that young and old clash incessantly over the necessity of the path young rail against the restrictions it imposes upon them much as our forebears did they wished to taste every sensation every emotion in their newfound world as soon as possible they do not fear the great enemy that was created by the desires of our ancestors for their whole conception of her evil is gleaned from distant tales and legends and that which brought fear in the nursery is spurned and ridiculed in adolescence only with time can they begin to feel the terrible thirst which we gave her and begin to understand that she is a mirror image a reflection of our worst excesses given life by the debauchery and depravity which preceded the fall long ago our race realized that the only way to elude the great enemy was to shatter the reflection to live a life of denial and focus upon but one aspect of life pursuing it unto perfection that is anathema to the young just as it is to the great enemy the young did not desire the discipline of the path but rather the curiosity drives them to try every fruit from the tree thus it is that so many take the path of wandering or the path of damnation in the first years of adulthood and so the great tragedy of our kind is played out again and again is the number of our people shrink from generation to generation the greatest truth about the path is the simplest to say and yet the hardest to comprehend and this profound moment comes a realization of the genius of the Assyrian and the flaw in their genius there is only one path and it binds us together we see as may pick apart the strands until we reach the infinitesimally small details but their presence is a distraction to the overall flow of the scheme be poet or dreamer or mourner warrior seer or outcast is the events in your life about threads in the core of your fate so your whole life is but a thread in the cord of the fate of the elder we all walk the path as a single species and as a collective we must learn to control our passions and our fears together or face destruction from one and the same now that is quite a long meditative peace but it gives us some critical information once you dissect it in the forward this line which states on the path we experience the full potential but never succumbing to the shadows of the work within our thoughts in the second piece where talks about many Elder not truly understanding the nature of things until they experience it for themselves and he was time can they begin to feel the terrible thirst which we gave her and begin to understand she's a mirror image reflection of our worst excesses given life by the deep or tree and depravity which preceded the fall long ago our race realized that the only way to elude the great enemy was to shatter the reflection to live a life of denial and focus upon but one aspect of life pursue it unto perfection they then also mentions about how the tragedy of the fall plays out over and over that their numbers shrink from generation to generation this also lends weight to my belief that the elder not only have the low numbers of children but those that they do have even if they've got protected by soul stones they are still corrupted by the thirst of sledneck initially perhaps for some of them this corrupts their soul stone and if they become lost then too slow Nash you also get the sense that they try to teach their young about the dangers of Senesh but that no amount of study can prepare for them it's true power and horror in the afterward it finishes by underscoring the fact that is a single species we all walk the path or face destruction one and the same so these three pieces by Cassandra's give us some deep insight that in fact the Croft world elder are not immune to the sole drain that the Dark Eldar suffer this is something that actually affects all elder it's just that the Croft world elders path of focus and discipline and not abject horror seems to steer them clearly away from this however for their younger children they don't understand this until it's often too late as described way it says understand she is a mirror image a reflection of our worst excesses given life by the deep or tree and depravity well they suggest to me is that if you align yourself with the lifestyle of excess and ultimately perverse behavior which is in line with Sloane - then you stare into the mirror into the darkness and she'll bleed your soul into the warp or something to that effect anyway the Dark Eldar discovered this soul siphoning process soon after the fall but far from avoiding it they developed their own methods to deal with such problems and that is to allow the siphon to function but be they Jakari children or adult instead of trying to stop this process they just decided hey why not just continually fill up the vessel so it never runs dry simple except that in order to achieve this a life of meditation discipline sobriety and abstinence are definitely not required aspects for the path as a Dark Eldar indeed quite the opposite oh and of course therein lies the prospect that should innate be born the craft world elder of the path may face a soul siphon of their own but as I said at the start of the chapter it's a theory / story they'll have to get into another time so the jacory discovered soon enough that through their extreme acts they were able to satisfy the thirst of slowness that drained their very spirits this is where Kamara becomes the center of their world and existence Somali - the crafts world elder the Dark Eldar have nowhere else to go they've become entirely focused on satisfy their ever draining souls in their constant need to engage in decadent depravity the Dark Eldar had now become little more than sadistic parasites who subsist upon the anguish of others in order to prevent the slow death of their immortal souls ten thousand years later in the 41st millennium so Nash's thirst pulls at them still there truly is no escape the Jakari have unwittingly doomed themselves exchanging a horrific but mercifully swift end for an eternity of ghoulish starvation and this is how the Jakari became Raiders of mortal souls their appearance can change visibly dependent on how long it's been since they quench the thirst that's constantly eating at their souls those who have not drank of the suffering of others will appear visibly gaunt even by the standards of the already boned thin elder their skin can seem dry and withered their bodies more frail for those who have drank of the torment of others will glow with an aura of perfection their skin cold but glistening with life but not they can appear like a shadow to some for they are inside empty shells and all they exist for is to fill that void it's worth additionally noting quite importantly that the innate psychic abilities of their straight as an arrow brethren have deteriorated to a point beyond where they are now able to be used to channel the energies of the warp and chaos really within Kimura will be to invite disaster and so the Dark Eldar do not use psychic powers of course this is somewhat problematic considering they exist within the web way but will come to them although it is manufactured instead of psychically grown the weaponry of the Dark Eldar is just as advanced as that used on Elder craft world in matters of war the Dark Eldar are artisans their imagination and skill has led them down a sinister path their favorite tools of war include splinter weapons that can set every nerve aflame with pain beams of dark light whips the bleed acidic occur and eldritch soul traps the Dark Eldar was so focused on the agony of others that their lightweight body suits even incorporate bladed plates not only for protection but also to give them yet another weapon to use upon their prey the Warriors of Kimura know each and every possible action by which they're able to kill others who inhabit galaxies and they delight in perfecting and refining their skills the Jakari have abandoned the material dimension long ago when they do emerge from their gated fortress city it's only to prey upon their unwitting victims who truly have no concept of what horrors await them they're rarely dirty their tongues with the savage grunting languages of lesser races when instead used translators where they must communicate for the Dark Eldar every aspect of their characters is pushed to the extreme including their condescending arrogance Jakari cabal's assault the feeble lesser races in piratical raids as they plunge down upon the world that they will harvest with whole armies screaming from their war portals into the midst of the foe aboard baroque craft craft before launching themselves to revel in the slaughter and yes literally bathing in the decadent sprays of arterial blood and explosively dismembered corpses littering the path of their passage for the Dark Eldar the visual Horrors they unleash that just as pleasing as the visibly clean tearing of a razor blade across soft flesh or for that matter whatever they choose they've relished casually breaking the bodies of their captives but such crude and tedious pain only grants them mere momentary slivers of enjoyment for the Jakari prize even more highly the cruel crushing of their captive spirit for truly nothing is more gratifying to a Dark Eldar than securing utter dominion over one who has resisted them which as we talked about interestingly aligns them very closely with Senesh they were drinking every nuance of woe into their captives are left in a vegetable ice state barely able to dribble words out of their ruined orifices somehow it may be discerned as a request for death how pitiful how pathetic how dare they have the sheer audacity to request such a thing except it's likely that even if this wish were granted it will be yet another form of mental torture as for many this will not be the release they were wishing for they will instead be brought before the foul Dark Eldar a monkey lie the guardians of life and death you hold many an individual's fate in their distorted claws for the many whose minds are already beyond the point of conscious we're nacelle they will be rent and reshaped into undying trophies or even grotesque items of jewelry furniture or decoration many a humonculon Slayer features disturbing moaning nerve inductive twitching of things and objects fashioned from they're still living remains of their favorite victims other unfortunate captives that no longer have any use will be slowly rendered down like so much fat their final fate is to become imbibed as some description of an elixir or powerful narcotic destined for the monstrous beings who stole their so precious lives and all of this is the most narrow snapshot of what takes place within the darkest recesses of Kimura Kimura is central to everything that is Dark Eldar it was their salvation during the emergence of slash it is now their whole world Kimura is the launch pad for the Jakari it is their Hub City by which they reach out into real space to then drag their unwitting victims back to the darkened corners of Hell it's important to understand that when we talk about the web way being a series of tunnels linking one place to another it's a common mistake to think of it simply as that corridor or tunnel connecting two places but the web way is far more than this web way similarly to the warp appears to ignore dimensional rules and physics the spaces inside of it can be absolutely vast large enough to carry entire fleets of ships indeed entire cities and who knows potentially even planetary size bodies it could in theory contain an entire race in complete isolation from the rest of material space and the immaterial it's tempting to think of the web way as another dimension itself except that it is not and that's important to remember even though to all intents and purposes it does act like another dimension but the web way is a constructed artificial pseudo space that exists between the material realm and the warp this is why it can be accessed from both and linked between these spaces the other faction who dabble with dimensions of course the Necron but lord knows they don't work off on a tangent right now and submit you guys to yet another physics lecture many sections of the web way were destroyed during the fall and have further deteriorated in the time since the wards which once acted as a defense the dark energy the walk were broken beyond repair by the for and when activity boils over within Kimora the totality of the psychic signal of the Jakari radiates even more powerfully than usual thus drawing the entities of the immaterial toward the dark city like apex predators catching the scent of blood in the water these incursions were referred to by the Jakari as disjunctions and it should be not underestimated how catastrophic such events are for the inhabitants of Kimora hellish warped creatures burst through the gaping cracks of the web way to feast upon the souls of any Dark Eldar they come across spires or slums it makes no difference to the demonic entities and soon all of Kimora becomes a brutal war for survival no disjunction though has eclipsed the devastating consequences which occurred during the breaching of Kane's gate returning to the web way in the city though the critical thing to understand is that although the web way is described as a bridge in a series of pathways it can also open out into these large dimensional spaces that can allow for entire cities like Gomorrah to exist and perhaps even bigger for ordinary mortals to look upon the worlds within the web way it can be a mind-bending experience as ordinary laws do not seem to apply here in fact it can even seem as if the eye is playing optical tricks and become very difficult to look at for your average pleb mortal and still the web Way is not what it once was and now even though they shelter from the storm of the warp the Jakari are far from safe here this only feeds their anxiety and heightened sense of their own precarious situations Kimora is the dark city which seeds with a constant flower of corruption as it draws evil to itself only to breathe it back out into the void today it is an endless nest of architectural contradictions and spatial anomalies each of its estates has been over developed to such an extent that their growth has been forced into the vertical plane in the rival region sprouting upwards like a tangle of needle plants fighting for a scrap of sunlight each of these spires and towers is linked to its rise by hundreds of curved arches and strands and crusted with complex silver structures that glow with stolen energies its towering palaces reach both upward and downward spiraling to the depths captive space with each passing year the parasitic City seeks to devour evermore with a hidden dimension that acts as its host some areas of the city are more well known than others some mapped and some are not others a death to enter unbidden the personal realms of powerful archons or cadaverous homunculus who do not take kindly to unsolicited intrusions yet most dangers are those regions that have fallen into disuse due to either structural or dimensional collapse and these may take the form of monster haunted wastelands of vitreous wreckage and ossified remains or lakes of seething poisons and screaming shadows the matter will often have suffered dimensional breaches due to the partial or total collapse of the web way around them may be bombarded by the light of dying stars or exists within fields of entropic radiation that wither living creatures to dust in seconds but the more desolate areas around and below the great city are known as low Kimora these ruins have shuttered spies and hidden compiles dot through this darkened wasteland he exists the Jakari who have fallen out of favor or fallen on hard times they're forced to feed on pain like starving refugees and will fight each other for the privilege out here exists a place known as the central core spur a dangerous place with Shaab for twisting ravines where at its base lies the river of acid yes that's right a river of acid because once you have your river of acid you can fight battle to the death over it the loser is sent hurtling to a horrible dissolving death to become part of the frothy caustic sludge that then washes upon its shores there are also mercenary districts in various shanty towns out here on the periphery of what passes for Jakari civilization assassins and hunters will compete for the best murder contract distributed by the Dark Eldar cabal's the inner rings are known as the core of Kimura and here you'll find ancient noble houses they contain odd Citadel's attended by trueborn warriors some of whom are said to descend from the original elder of the fall below this region lies the underworld aptly named as he exists a labyrinth of dark and horrors where the homunculus covent exists they're disturbing laboratory sprawled below the core the city where they ply their bizarre crafts throughout its harrowing maze of dark chambers that one might not care to peer in upon for the sounds which emanate within you would not wish to become disorientated within its vast corridors in hidden passages it's twisting stair walls lit by lamps sewn into the eye sockets of incautious visitors and the bodies of countless alien species are flexed so as to line the walls and exist as still living relief sculptures the homunculus covens despite appearing as appalling dens of depravity are in fact invaluable to the denizens of Kimora they deal in body modification drug production and by a wide margin most importantly they're experts in the resurrection of dead flesh and the reason for this will clarify shortly lastly we come to the aptly and definitely not over dramatically named chasm of woe it's a newer region of the city and it's also one of the most dangerous and horrific the reason for this is that the chasm is swarming with demons now this might sound strange and pretty contradictory but it's a very recent development and a direct result of what is known as the great disjunction and to understand this we have to talk about Kane's gate which is a region of Kimura it's located in the depths of its under core and was known only to a select few it is a direct gateway to the war remembering what I noted about how the web way bridges between material and immaterial space that it can therefore be open to either to anyone of course where you are however the consequences of this opening into Kimura should be obviously not something that any would desire least of all Dark Eldar now in the period of 497 m41 something began to test the weak points in and around Kimura methodically attempting to locate points of entry was noted that a steady pounding began to be heard on the other side of the gates of Kane and from there on a figure who was known as overlord effect a very powerful cabal leader indeed the most powerful Dark Eldar in existence orders some 500 Jakari incubi warriors to be permanently stationed at the gate not wanting to take any chances vector also establishes failsafe systems around the gate such as temporal flux mines nulls and a dimensional mirror they will throw anything reflected in its surface directly into the heart of a Sun this increased force does nothing though to slow the increasing activity whispering and micro vibrations begin to be noted that the regularly inspected gait now Overlord vac claims to have witnessed the fall of the elder personally this is true he is quite possibly one of the oldest living mortal beings in the galaxy at well over 10,000 years of age and as a consequence of this surviving for that length of time as the ruler of Kimora would also make him one of the deadliest individuals as well in the galaxy in his youth he rose to power by unwittingly or perhaps wittingly causing the deaths of all the other rulers of Kimora when he captured a salamanders a star T's cruiser and thus ensued an imperial invasion of Kimora when all was said and done the starties had killed the Lords of Kimora and Vector merged as the next most powerful figure a ruler if you want to call it that but it came to get things were only becoming progressively worse those assigned with guarding the gate were slowly being driven insane by the unending ever more pervasive whisperings some of the guardian incubi began carving let us in across the walls others carve this message directly crudely into their flesh many others do this all over their bodies leading to horrifying bone deep lacerations with flesh and fat literally hanging from their bones like loose cloth others simply lose all sense of self and just hack off their own appendages or those of others and despite all this highly apparent horror that continues to suppress widespread knowledge of these goings on but he does decide it's a prudent move to distance his cabal away from the area placing them into well-guarded sub realms then after something like half a century of ever-increasing activity a warp storm causes Cain's gate to glow white-hot for several moments one of its mighty change snaps with the sound of a thunderclap and at this exact moment every single web way portal within the dark city flickers out and then returns to life even so this singular moment plunges hundreds of thousands into limbo or just tears them apart in transit the dark city is soon in an uproar and demands that vector implement immediate action and a full-blown disjunction in a typically Jakari counterproductive effort but there is so much suspicion and paranoia of each other's bizarre plots lady malice leader of another cabal is very suspicious of vet she believes his activity around the gate and the disturbances are intentional and that he for whatever reason seeks to actually trigger the opening of the gate continual skirmishes begin occurring and none of them seem to realize that in actuality they're struggling towards the same goal but of course they never see this fact and continue stabbing each other in the darkened under core of Kimura a hairline crack appears across Kane's gate and the caged nulls begin to scream later when if rain of the Inari is possessed by innate the power of this event sends a psychic shockwave known as a hyperspatial quake or to those in Kimura it's a disjunction it causes mass destruction in the city this spires fall and millions died but worse is to come as finally Kane's gate collapses under the force of this disjunction psychic now surrounding it but killed by the force and then quite literally all hell breaks loose demons pour through the gate into kimura tearing to pieces in Egypt copy that they encounter vector had by now abandoned the most dangerous areas were treating with his cabal to these safely prepared darkened corners of the web way Kimura would whether this should his rival cabal's do or die was not his concern it is only when the Warriors and slave armies of Kimura the stretch beyond breaking point in their efforts to save the city from demonic destruction this vector then finally play his hand he calls upon the incubi warriors utilizing pacts and all debts to fight the demons at high expense the demons are steadily corralled into an area confined which now contains the distorted gaping hole that was formerly Cain's gate this area is then subsequently severed from the rest of Kimura plunged into a nether abyss which comes to be known as the formally discussed chasm of war but despite this all they have done is to create a concentrated chaotic demon infested abscess at the lowest center of Kimura more of the dark cities sub dimensions are plunged into the cow as armies of warriors in their slaves with them in an attempt to keep the chaos entities from reaching the heart of Kimura once more to make matters worse this is where the great rift will then tear the galaxy open another wave ripples through real space and the web way shattering countless portals and gates the lead to and from Kimora all sections of the labyrinth dimension become dislocated and through the fractures in the interstitial playing more demons come pouring in word meanwhile the Imperium of man is beset by the warp more and one half of the Imperium is plunged into shadow the ability to travel communicate between systems is all but lost and each world stands isolated in the darkness is the servants of the chaos gods begin their campaign of slaughter the Watchers in Kimora see these worlds are now ripe for the plucking but as appealing as such fresh fruits are they must contend with the all too current cataclysms taking place in both the web way and Kimora with every incubi in Kimora attempting to stem the tide of demons long-standing bitter rivalries between the dark city's elites erupt into bloodshed assassinations become brazen and commonplace and the pall of civil war hangs over all yet right when the denizens of Kimora seems set to tear themselves in their cities as shreds to the astonishment of or overload vector is murdered cut down by Mandrake's of an unknown master simultaneously at this time his essence is destroyed and this ensures that he cannot be regrown by the homunculus we'll discuss shortly the threat of an internal conflict is soon replaced by an uneasy stillness as every comma right must assess their alliances if vector can be killed then who amongst the Jakari can be assured of their own survival the holocrine elder of the veiled paths prepare a wake for vector to be held in the Nexus this is an arena of the witch cult of the cursed blade many begin to suspect that it was the cursed blade who orchestrated the overlords demise others suspect it was the lady malice for she and her cabal of the poisoned tongue have withdrawn from Kimora in the fractured spires of the web way nonetheless the great wake is attended in numbers by both those low to vector and by those who come to gloat before beginning a war to divide his territories but at the crescendo of the proceedings the arena is saturated with potent airborne hallucinogens and Harlequin unleash their full fury on the archons in attendance archons are the leaders of Jakari cabal's joining the fray on the side of the veiled path holic winds of The Witches of the cursed blade as well as the prophets of flesh and warriors from vex own cabal the blood of archons flows in great rivers and amidst the screams of agony and terror vector rises from the center of the arena his body perfect in form and his eyes filled with broth when the slaughter has finished those archons who remained faithful to effect are resurrected by the prophets of flesh as are some of his enemies that they are remade as twisted monstrosity whose only purpose is to serve the supreme overlord by their suffering having cold the upper echelons of Kimura vex position is rendered now nigh unassailable and he declares himself a living dark muse the nearest comparison to which might be something like a living saint of the Imperium or perhaps if they were truly powerful even something like a lesser god of the elder worth remembering though that fact designated himself this position so it's fairly spurious the chasm of woe itself though was unable to be fully sealed it now remains as an ever-present threat to the city of Kimura the Jakari tried to slow this doomsday encroachment by creating a series of sub dimensions between Cain's gate and Kimura itself they transport dilapidated parts of the city into the path of the unending demon onslaught in this way the demonic incursion is kept from ever reaching the heart of the city but in order to maintain this precarious safety each day more of these sub realities must be added to the chasm to inhibit the surging forces of chaos from them overflowing should they ever break through into the city itself they will surely devour Kimura from within as for the changing balances within the strange relationships of the old Dori many Harlequin and jacory unite behind Eve rain and the Inari in their quest to destroy Slone ash it a great money do not share this vision residing in the hi spies of Kimura supreme overlord of act continues to develop his plans to bring an end to rain in the Inari their grand quest posing a direct threat to everything that the dakari have sought to avoid for so long the Jakari contain a myriad of forces to list but a few the incubi ravages scourge 'as Mandrake's succubi witches hellions grotesques and Kronos but all of these we can look into later at leisure for today we will focus on three core areas of Jakari culture the cabal's which cults and of course the homunculus covens the commands of the Jakari are essentially its power structure it's not really a political structure in any sense more a loose grouping of autonomous organisations who are blend of organized crime pirates and aristocratic nobility all the best things for a healthy society together and last the cabal's will vary wildly in terms of role territory reputation power and so on rivalry is fierce an assassination attempts between bitter enemies is common a small cabal will often house several hundred elder while a major house may contain millions in some respects it's not all that dissimilar to a strange combination of hive city Nobles seeking to retain family power mixed with under hive gang warfare they will focus on their day-to-day activities of capturing slaves manufacturing drugs and weapons territory control and of course cutting the throats of any upstarts who are developing ideas above their station elitism and Cabal status is a way of life with many areas of the city only being accessible to certain noble houses Overlord vector of course crushed the old order when many of the jacory Lords were killed and this is when the system of cobbles became embedded in the Jakari way of life because of the benefits that exist from membership within a cabal competition to enter their ranks is fierce and this means it's often difficult to fully eradicate a cabal as the turnover of new applicants is always very high with dangerous tasks being doled out to the newest members scene because of this especially in areas of the city controlled by multiple lower-level cabal's the streets often appear more like a war zone with continual running battles and skirmishes on a near daily basis these are largely ignored though by the more powerful cabal's who wouldn't want to dirty themselves with such crude affairs when a creative blade in the dark is altogether more effective these internal affairs of Kimura are not what most Jakari truly aspire to though the true prize is to take part in a raid upon the material raids into real space usually concerned with two things the acquisition of new slaves for horrifying torture or just decadent pain feasts with no limits however for those attending and returning from such raids they have unseen benefits but not of course for the mortals they leave weeping in their wake raids into the material will boost a Jakari standing in that cabal and dependent on its success also with other cabal's successful raids are one means by which a cabal can rise to a position of becoming noteworthy over other rivals without petty street skirmishing in truth though raids are usually carried out by the major cabal because this is what they will primarily focus their resources and manpower on they will launch all-out raids with attack craft on anything from helpless feral worlds to hive cities where they will plunder its resources and drag thousands of slaves back to the darkness of Kimora unlike many races in the 41st millennium the Jakari commit significant time to gaining intel on their targets this is because raiding can be an expensive dangerous task to carry out and you wouldn't want say a surprise force of a starties to spoil your plans the core goal is to return with enough wealth however that is going to be calculated to justify the assault and any losses incurred another difference when it comes to Jakari raids is that it's rarely a stand up fight within the galaxy of the future it's interesting to consider that most battles are waged in a relatively straight up fashion orcs will just throw everything at you nekron the same to need the same it's really any chaos and the Tao who might be more devious in their plans now it obviously would be silly to suggest that every single faction for like this every single time or that there are no factions including Imperials who don't use some form of intelligence gathering or utilize stealth and more covert underhanded methods to win the day because of course we could list off countless examples from assassins to infiltration years even the orcs have infiltration units but what's notable though is how much the Jakari favor engagements that are less of a straight fight and they actively will avoid it where possible for them traits like honor are merely something that should just be exploited they will always hit the enemy's weak points and engage in continued misdirection and sabotage if it means shooting someone in the back they're gonna do it every single time they'll focus attacks on command elements officers communications they will seek to quickly create disorientation and panic in their enemy and they will feel no shame in fading into the shadows where fighting gets a little too intense if it means that they can counter-attack a weakened unit elsewhere and it should go without saying that any target is fair game be they armed unarmed men women children it's all the same for them and the less threat they pose actually all the better like most forces be the Imperial eldery or Xena's the Cabal can often favor a style of attack so this could be winged attack craft deploying heavy amounts of infantry firepower stacked gunships to suppress and crush enemy positions despite their use of craft most Dark Eldar will always prefer getting into close combat above any ranged engagement and this is why they don't often have very heavy-duty ranged firepower and the reasons for this should be obvious because it enables them to savor the suffering and torment of their victims as they lacerate and tear their flesh apart in all manners of creative death dances this is why their vehicles often fast and lightweight because the role is to really enable them to get up close into combat as quickly as possible these orgies of visceral bloodletting often lead to streets being left or wash with blood with any victims not being dragged back to Kimora lying in open view as the Shivering remains of hacked victims are simply strewn about the place and this is but the tip of the iceberg of course many Jakari raids engage in horrifying practices disfiguring victims things skin from body and then dragging their screaming captives together like a brace of animals knotted by their own skin some may be pinned together some Jakari may even remove the faces of their victims with brutal but surgical precision to enhance the screaming torment of those around them into a nightmarish cacophony of despair [Music] then we come to the witch cults the providers of public perversion these are also known as the coats of the arenas for they arrange logical addit oriole battles for the masses to enjoy accept honor and skill and not on the menu here they're designed only to be more violent and extreme with each engagement the reason for these arenas existence at all is that despite continual raids they cannot possibly be enough mortal slaves for each Jakari to engage in continual personal torture so instead these events arenas are ways for an ordinary daiquiri to wet their whistle so to speak without the witch cults it's debatable how long it would be before Jakari began to turn on each other just as they did toward the final days in the fall where the dark cults of the elder hunted the streets seeking out any and all in order to satisfy their insatiable lust for suffering so these disturbing arena engagements are actually a very important way of keeping the dark thirsting wolf at the door for the Jakari obviously though in order for this to be effective the arena shows need to be spectacular in their horror and they rarely disappoint the carnage on display leaves audiences feeling well satisfied having witnessed appalling Xena's predators gorge themselves on unwilling victims or one-on-one battles where the end result is usually an extended death in the most cruel display of barbarism arenas themselves will vary from being strange mazes of death traps to a field of raised platforms filled with spinning blades pools of acid below not to mention those with all manner of strange beasts usually with large amounts of teeth some use the bizarre way that physics seem to become flexible within the web way as it is observed by mortals who set eyes on Kimura these arenas could contain strange kinetic traps mechanisms that are energy based hazards or just spaces that defy any rational sense the arena itself though is not the limit of these displays because often the fights will then bleed into the audience sometimes literally they may fight above the crowd across bridges moving platforms sometimes a fighter may even involve the crowd depending on what they're visiting upon a bested opponent the arena's crackle with tension the viewers leaned forward in their seats with eyes wide and the layers of hungry predators edged upon their faces be they aerial ballets of bloodletting zero-gravity mass murder or carefully selected menage Aires on the prowl all cult performances have one thing in common the arena is slick with blood and viscera by the show's conclusion these cults though are not purely for entertainment as with gladiatorial battles of old the witch cults generate considerable social power within Kimora and consequently they're very valuable allies for any cabal not to mention the fact that their membership usually numbers in the thousand and all highly trained killers who are worth recruiting for really any fight they will put their time in to assist the cobalt as well because one thing they require is a strong supply of new slaves to use for their arena displays so the Cabal sand-witch cults both benefit from strong ties between one another but they can also operate independently which raids are considered an art form of themselves too many Dark Eldar and a place on these raids can indeed come at a high price having said all of that despite all the artistry and pageantry to which the witch cult play up to and are known primarily for their displays are truly a veritable orgy of violence and carnage they're experts in combat and the employ surgical precision to eviscerate their enemies any who may bear witness to their engagements would describe the horror as a bizarre juxtaposition of joyous celebration twinned with ruinous horror wherever the witch cult will visit they surely leave behind them a broken mangled wake of shattered mortal corpses and then at last we come to the coven of the homunculus they are legendary masters of torture and despair but they also play a far more vital indeed critical role for the Jakari at a base level they produce drugs and toxins cruel abominations that deal in body modification abhorrent unnecessary surgery and vivisection yet their endless experimentation and diabolical methods have brought to hold power over death itself under the Jakari this has become one of their most valuable services and sometime every Dark Eldar must visit the homunculus they're likely not by choice they occupy the vast labyrinth beneath the core of Kimura and here in the darkest pits of the Damned they ply their trade and indulge in Horrors that mortals could only describe as being like the mythical realm of Hell itself their walkways halls and corridors are a maze of optical illusions living mortals twisted into the form of objects eyes follow you embedded within the walls and many things appear to be in a still state of living despite the seeming impossibility of such a fact as we discussed earlier the Eldar cycle for birth is longer than other races although this is Vega nonspecific it must take a considerable time because the homunculus have developed a process whereby artificially grown Jakari are the more common method for offspring they will grow within insect like honey combs that permeate the lair of the homunculi within these chambers the embryo Jakari are accelerated artificially although again this is an unspecified period when ready they're broken out in a chrysalis like sack to then become what are known as half born a despised yet common member of Comoros society their true power though lies in their ability to prevent death in a manner of speaking in order to achieve this willing high status members of a cabal must enter into something akin to a Faustian bargain with the homunculus whereby they will regenerate their body should they be killed except in order to do this they have to agree to give the homunculus a portion of their eternal soul this again has weight to what we have come to understand that Elder souls are very different thing compared to the other mortal races and their souls can in fact be dealt with in something like a commodity the reason of course that any Jakari should want to avoid permanent death of their physical body should be obvious that they wish to avoid their soul having nowhere to go other than into the Willing clutches of sloane ash so the homunculi are capable of restoring an entire body the physical self with the smallest amount of that person's remains in addition to what I've said already about the Eldar soul and mortal Souls there seems to be an additional thing we learn here about the way in which elder Souls Dark Eldar Jakari seemed to be able to exert some will over what happens next this also bleeds into this idea that elder Souls formerly did not necessarily go into the warp immediately upon death but instead laying something like a purgatory regardless providing the physical body can be restored within a day or so there's a strong chance that the Jakari soul will be able to locate it and resume its state of living undeath however it is known that sometimes slaves and tortured victims of the Dark Eldar can also be resurrected by the monkey light in this way so there may be something going on in regard to the soul that we don't fully understand here this is also the reason why when enacting raids upon the material Jakari do not like to become entangled in extended confrontations over days and weeks it would be unusual to see them participate in some kind of extended campaign especially if the risk of physical death were very high they'd prefer instead to strike secure what they need and get out as quickly as possible then should any high-value members of a cabal have suffered any unfortunate accidents they can be safely restored the key to this terrible process is unsurprisingly pain the Jakari are rejuvenated by witnessing agony and if saturated with enough of it they can heal from almost any wound as such the mortal remnants of those delivered to the dubious care of the homunculus are installed into crystal fronted pods these sarcophagi are arrayed in concentric circles that rise up into the darkness each holding a semi cocooned Jakari warrior in a regenerative state the patients literally during in the dark energy of the torturers crop as the homunculus works upon his victim below a burly assisted by his rack servants and the semi-sentient engines of pain as a cacophony of shrieks rises around the chamber those installed in the cocoons slowly feast upon the energies ever so gradually growing back into their bodies skeleton first their muscle sinew and skin until their hole once more during times of war it is common for every regeneration pod to be filled with red roar fiends shivering and rattling with every fresh scream of course all of this does not compare with the true horror of the homunculus and that is their presence in raids upon real space itself the homunculus are terrifying enough within Kimora but when stepping into the real world they are beyond people's concept of a living nightmare and most comically is the fact that human kill I will compete in what could be best described as sport with one another except that this sport is of course foul and disgusting members of a coven will compete to create the most pleasingly abhorrent monstrosities with the twisted bodies and pieces of their captives creating bizarre creations that are a true parody of humanoid form sickening to observe sad and pitiful inform the eyes of individuals twisted into these horrific forms unable to speak but eyes burning with agony twinned with humiliation and despair that say all they are unable to is their mouths are very often sewn shut or just removed entirely the homunculus will unleash these hellish minions upon their enemy watching their effectiveness with interest they consider such competition to be very inspiring will often offer a well-deserved compliment to one another should rivals achieve some especially impressive act of violence although compliment might be something of a generous description orgasmic growl might be a better way to consider it how any drew curry actually becomes a homunculus is not clear they're believed to be of an advanced age as their withered nightmarish appearance suggests their harrowing state of self-mutilation leaves many a monkey unable or unwilling to engage in physically demanding tasks indeed most monkey-like issue mundane physical exertion and instead perform their grand tasks through supplicants and minions interestingly enough some homunculus covens have taken an interest in the development of the primaries Marines while crewed by the standards of Kimura these genetically developed humanoids piqued the interest of aerial rakov who now seeks to raid the material and capture a prime heiress from every chapter to add these samples to his vast libraries of material flesh some of the monkey-like coven do not focus primarily on the physical and will instead look to the suffering of the soul they will prefer to witness their captive victims debase themselves or be driven at an agonizingly delayed speed to madness they perceive themselves as being far to adapt to lower themselves to the level of physical torture such practices bore them their tediously repetitive at this stage instead they will challenge themselves to end a captive victim without even physical contact they seek to enact suffering and despair through fear and torment to a stage of insanity by a process of psychological torment of course this may take many months or even many years to achieve and they will be there by their victims side to savor every second and minute of it this is enabled them to develop chemical or pathogen based weapons some even suggest sub dimensional parasites that lay eggs in their subjects brain that once infected will drive the target afflicted with waking nightmares so intense that they will claw out their own eyes rip off their face or even drive sharp and length of material into their brain to silence the horrors they are unable to escape or abate of course the process of regeneration is not limited to the Jakari some homunculus will ensure their victims go through continual repeated states of birthing so that even should they die or commit suicide as a result of their torment they'll be forced to endure it again and again unable to free themselves from their suffering of course there is one more I choose to make mention of that is the flesh collectors when homunculus send their talis engines to accompany a raid in real space these monstrous servants are often tasked with collecting specific samples for their masters and typically this involves devouring certain types of a creature from a planet's populace or subsuming a specific individual such as a planetary governor however at times the demands of the homunculus are far more nuanced when raiding Towel space the talus known as the marrow giver was once instructed to consume only those fire warriors who had witnessed the rest of their strike team slaughtered before them failure to complete such a task or worse deviation from instructions inevitably will see a talus dismantled and discarded two outside observers such stringency may seem wasteful but in their craft the homunculus absolute precision and perfection so different types of harvested material can carry different properties each of course having a unique purpose musculature and nervous tissue are combined in ways unimaginable all mankind and the emotions absorbed by creatures flesh upon its death are then extracted enhance and fashioned into weapons so to pollute such work with impurities meat from a wrong species blood permeated with the wrong emotion would be to spoil the homunculus work which they may have slaved over for many decades it could deny an entirely new morbid creation to the galaxy furthermore homonka day may often wish to reconstitute the soupy remains of a Tallis victim and then revive them into life so they can then be interrogated again before of course a harrowing existence of pain and suffering for any world who has endured the assaults and raids of the takari whether they know them by title or not the entities who mortals fear more than any other of the homunculus [Music] lastly we often endlessly repeat the phrase in the grim darkness of the far future there is only war but when it comes to the Dark Eldar it could be more appropriate to say in the grim darkness of the far future there lie in the shadows the Jakari and they will drag you away to a darkened corner of their realm and submit you to endless unspeakable suffering that would destroy your body and soul but it doesn't quite have the same ring to it at face value the Jakari are living nightmares terrifying monsters who seek only to inflict misery despair and agony upon others this is of course entirely accurate but scratching the surface to a deeper level stripping away their spiky armor and numb cold-hearted exteriors they are in many ways more like scared lost children who strayed from the path and now live each and every day in constant anxiety of each other and so as to avoid the drain of slush where to find their next fix the Jakari twist their bizarre imaginations and perverted ambitions to drive their upside down society and yes their hellish endeavors are all too real for the slaves and captives forced to suffer in Kimora but all we can do for such Lost Souls is give to them our pity and prayer no matter who the Jakari dragged off into the eternal night finding themselves in some pitch blood-soaked torture chamber saturated with sights and sounds no one should ever wish to experience they will quickly lose all hope of ever knowing normality again we however can know that in many ways all this suffering all this horror is at least to some extent a perverse charade until recently the Jakari had no opportunity no real sense of forward development they would exist only to continue to exist however there is some change in the wind certainly by no means all but some of the Dark Eldar have begun to drift toward the newly emerging cause of the inari this new pathway gives the Dark Eldar an escape a way out and a new path that they can see may hold some actual value in following all the while the inari continued to stride forward fear to see writing the next chapter of their story as they do in the name of one of the most ancient races that exists in a galaxy of the 42nd millenium Jakari craft world exudate Harlequin nari when in a had finally meets Len ash they will all be Eldar once again the only unanswered questions still remaining is that when this finally comes to pass will it mean the total destruction of the eldery or their eternal rebirth assuring in a new era for the galaxy [Music] so now I just want to talk briefly about audible and why I think it is an excellent service for you to use many of you guys continued to tell me that you use this service and why it is so good and I've included your comments as I always do here on the screen so you can see for yourself wide is a great service you can start today with a 30-day audible trial one free audiobook and unlimited monthly audible originals just be sure please to use my link above audible.com forward slash lutein or for those of you in the u.s. text eluting to 500 500 now even if you just want to try audible and see if it's a good fit for you this is a good opportunity because you get the free 30-day trial and one audiobook and that book can be anything you could choose a 40k audiobook that's 10 hours or something shorter like a 30 60 minute short story as always I want to recommend some totals for you and unfortunately the dark out are a little slim when it comes to audiobook options however I have three choices for you today that I'm sure you would greatly enjoy each of varying lengths first up is KB a stands this is not a short one at nearly 8 hours in length but this is one reason why even I choose to use audiobooks because it means I can listen while painting and really make the best use of my time the book deals with the time on Cadia leading up to the 13th Black Crusade of Abaddon and we see things from an imperial Guardsman's perspective this is a fantastic listen because you really get a strong atmosphere of what life is like from a more human perspective not the higher end of the power scale in the Imperium you'll hear about the frustrating bureaucracy that ordinary humans have to deal with but also the strength character and mindset of humans in the 41st millennium you only have to look at other people's reviews on the site to see why it's so great with one person even saying it inspired them to begin a guard army now next I've selected Val d'Or now Val d'Or came out only in March of 2020 and it touches on a variety of issues and comes in at a fairly comfortable 6 hours you can consume that in an afternoon easily the main reason though why I selected Val d'Or is because I know it will be of interest to many of you it's set in the final days of the unification Wars and quite honestly I don't want to say more than that other than it deals with the dark fate of the Thunder warriors and that alone should make you want to check it out it is a very good story and I am sure you wouldn't be disappointed pointed lastly I select again death wolf it's a short story at any 30 minutes but it includes the Dark Eldar space wolves and the human mining colony of that's right the Luton necropolis suspend your disbelief as the narrator mispronounces Luton and know that brutal horror awaits the citizens of my namesake planet one Shore a member with audible you get a credit good for any audiobook you guard las' of the price and any unused credits will roll over for you next month members will save 30% of regularly priced audiobooks which gives you a significant saving on any titles that you pick up remember you can start a free 30-day audible trial today you can choose one audiobook you get unlimited downloads please just be sure to use the link above audible.com /a Luton or again for those in the u.s. you can text loot into 500 500 to get started today so as always I'll just say a big thanks to all you guys for the massive support here on the channel soo-ji appreciated loads more stuff is coming up very very soon and I hope you enjoy the free audio book that you can get from this offer I'll see you in the next one [Music]

Channel: Luetin09

Views: 1,318,470

Keywords: Gaming, Discuss, Channel, Future, 40K, Warhammer 40K, Imperium, Humanity, Mankind, Doom, Fall, Space Marines, Heretic, Heresy, The Emperor of Man, Lore, History, Guide, Warhammer 40000, Warp, Immaterium, Rift, War, Slaughter, Horror, Nightmare, Tabletop, Inquisition, Dark Eldar, Commorragh, Drukhari

Id: 65EG5-SL3Xw

Length: 93min 42sec (5622 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 29 2020