I have seen stats all over the place for playable Eldar, and even found a character generator Excel spreadsheet that includes Eldar. I've seen Craftworld Eldar, Exodite Eldar, Pirate-Born Eldar, etc.

Is any of this from an actual sourcebook? I can't find Eldar anywhere!

Eldar have no current playable rules, other than the recently-released Dark Eldar in The Soul Reaver.

I've written up Craftworld Eldar as a homebrew if you would like to see.

I'd love to! Is it a full playable PC, or still in progress? I assume that it's at least reasonably balanced to play from the start, alongside humans and/or Orks.

Scrow said:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=271&efcid=3&efidt=668982

Scroll down to the bottom for the fixed version. I'd love to hear how it goes!

It's all fan-created. Currently the only official playable Eldar ist the Kabalite Warrior from Soul Reaver.

EDIT: **** it, how did I manage to overlook all the follow-up posts? I need coffee…..

Mjoellnir said:

Which is something I find absolutely incomprehensible. I mean, the Dark Eldar are the insane cousins of an already insane race. How rules for them came before rules for regular Eldar is beyond me, and so is what would drive any Rogue Trader to allow one anywhere near his ship.

There are so many Eldar NPC's of all types, just grab one and use it with your GM's permission. Customize its skills and talents a tiny bit. What else do you need?

Grand Inquisitor Fulminarex said:

Progression.

JuankiMan said:

I'm not sure where at all you're getting this "insaner than the normal insane" idea. Nothing of my understanding of Eldar of all types would depict them as insane. Yes, they're following a very different ideal and their motives are quite different than Imperial humans, but they're still intelligent and logical, just following a different kind of logic. Eldar from Commorragh may appear crazed and demented to Imperials, but at their root they're doing something that makes a lot of sense in their particular context, and they're doing it very methodically.

If you look at the Imperium from the perspective of an Eldar, humans look equally insane, and the Inquisition essentially fills the exact same roll the "Dark" Eldar do for their race: torture and killing for a greater good.

HTMC said:

Well, now we're getting a bit metaphysical, aren't we. After all, I'm sure a paranoid schyzophrenic finds stuffing people in his freezer to be perfectly sensible. And insane doesn't equal random. That guy who killed all those people in Sweden was mad as a hatter, but he was also extremely methodical and patient.

By definition the insane follow a different kind of logic, so yes, the Eldar are insane by Imperial standards, and the Dark Eldar are insane by Eldar standards. However I don't think the Dark Eldar consider the other two insane. They probably just think they're stupid.

Oh and the Dark Eldar do absolutely nothing for any "greater good". They torture, maim and kill for ***** and giggles and because otherwise they would animically starve.

JuankiMan said:

There is at least one example of Dark Eldar forces assisting a Craftworld to resist a siege. While I'm sure that they had some stake in the matter, they at least appeared to be benevolent on the surface.

JuankiMan said:

I don't think we're getting metaphysical, you're just using a very Imperial-centric system of thinking, and falling into the common fallacy that the Imperium is in any way a "good" force in the 40k universe, and that the 40k universe has a "right" and "wrong" side rather than different shades of evil. So sure, I'll agree that DE are insane by Imperial standards, I'm just objecting to using the Imperium as the default standard and thinking that the Imperial way = the logical and/or morally right way.

Greater good was probably a poor choice of words. What I was trying to convey was that Dark Eldar are not simply murdering and torturing because they enjoy it, but rather it serves a higher purpose. Essentially all that terrorizing and killing goes towards keeping Slaanesh's eye off the Eldar, helping keep the DE alive and immortal, and essentially ensuring they don't fall into the unending hell at the hands of She Who Thirst that all Eldar fear. It's exactly the same goal that all Eldar strive towards, whether they Harlequin, Craftworld, Exodite, "Dark," or any other Eldar cultural variant. So I don't think that insane is the right word to use to describe Commorrargh residents: again, it's a perfectly sound motivation that works, and although it doesn't map onto any moral system, the Dark Eldar care more about the result than the method. Perhaps that makes them insane, but again, the "ends justify the means" mentality is used by practically every force in the 40k universe, from Space Marines to the Craftworld Eldar to the Tau, and so if the DE are insane, so is practically everyone in the 40k universe.

HTMC said:

Well, groups are by default composed majorly of Imperial humans, so I find mostly reasonable to use their way of thinking as a general metric, but I have no illusions at all about the Imperium being anywhere near "good". However they're usually the least horrible of about half a dozen evils, so they tend to often come out as "good" simply by comparison. The Imperium knows full well that the Galaxy is a cold and cruel place that mercilessly chews up "good", so it at least tries to uphold order instead.

And the DE do torture and kill for their own amusement. They're too proud to admit that they are addicted to the agony of others or that they're terrified of what lurks beyond the veil of time and space, so to cope they conviced themselves that they do what they do out of choice, out of their own volition, and with the passing of millenia they have come to embrace the lie with sickening abandon, living an eternal unlife of self-delusion. Craftworld Eldar and Harlequins faced the same struggles, but instead of wallowing in the same depravity that caused the Fall in the first place, they devised methods to hide from the Prince of Excess that weren't so self-destructive as to require the use of cloning and becoming galactic parasites to survive. They're also actually working into a way to actually combat their foe, even if it implies their total extinction.

So yeah, the entire Warhammer 40K universe is insane, but the Dark Eldar are crazier than most.

Its funny that where you find the Imperium to be the least evil, I find them generally the most reprehensible of all the 40k races.

I wonder why that is.

So you're one of those people whose deluded themselves in to thinking Chaos just wouldn't be that bad if the Imperium wasn't around to always 'antagonize' them? Cause those people are complete fools.

Cause yeah, franky humanity does have a pretty good claim, when it comes to which race is the 'most good'. But that doesn't mean JaunkiMan isn't wrong about this whole idea that Dark Eldar would never be able to work with the group (I've explained at length as to why I think Eldar would actually be more problems than Dark Eldar).

Seeten said:

Well, let's see what other merry men populate the Warhammer 40K universe:

Eldar: Their depravity and excess caused the birth of a Chaos God and put and abrupt and violent end to the Golden Age of Technology, also causing a massive rift in time and space that threatens to engulf the galaxy. As they are now, they care absolutely nothing for anything that isn't them and are just as xenophobic as the Imperium, perhaps more so, but while the Imperium's xenophobia stems from fear and ignorance (some would also add prudence), Eldar xenophobia comes from pride and vanity. Simply put, if you aren't Eldar your life is worth less than nothing to them.

Dark Eldar: The Eldar are bad enough but at least they cooperate with each other and are actively working to self-sacrifice to destroy Slaanesh. Sometimes they even seem to strive to preserve the stability of the Galaxy. Not the Dark Eldar. They just wallow in the very same depravity that destroyed their race and predate on every other living thing for their own perverse amusement, including each other. In fact, their society is in fact so self-destructive that they need to resort to mass cloning and necromancy to sustain themselves. Everything that is wrong with the Eldar, the Dark Eldar crank it up to eleven.

Orks: Orks are war. They do, think and know nothing but conflict and the concept of peace is completely alien for them. Everything in their path gets brutalized and stomped to death or gets enslaved for a short but extremely painful time. They have no culture, no civilization, they're like a horde of very angry locusts.

Tyranids: And speaking of angry locusts, the Tyranids are the bane of everything that is. Their victory would mean a galaxy left barren and abandoned as the swarm moves on. I wouldn't call them evil. They're beyond good and evil, but that is little consolation for whoever gets nommed by them.

Tau: The Tau seem like the closest thing to "good" in the WH40K, but that's because they have good PR. In fact they have a "with us or against us" mentality, and though they ask nicely at first, they won't take no for an answer. Also they say they have "allied races" but that is a lie. Their "allies" are not part the Empire but slaves of it. The Tau probably wouldn't let them leave and they have absolutely no say on Tau politics and large scale politics and are often used as cannon fodder so that the Tau themselves can minimize their own casualties.

Necrons: I'm not that familiar with their retconned nature, but I think that they're still completely antagonistic to everything alive in the galaxy. I think that now the Lords are like insane AIs, working on long forgotten protocols and patterns but still omnicidal to everything and everyone.

Chaos: Chaos is pure entropy, corruption and slavery to eldritch horrors that wan't nothing more than to extend their own domain, invade the real world and drown it in a tidal wave of horror and dispair. Really, I shouldn't even need to explain why Chaos is bad.

Compared all of this I don't think it's that incredible to find the Imperium as the lesser evil.

JuankiMan said:

Incorrect. Orks do have a culture and a civilisation. That culture is focussed utterly on the perpetuation of conflict, but then so is the Imperium. Orks are innately violent, brutal creatures, yes, but they don't actually regard their violent nature as being anything inappropriate. Orks themselves are resilient enough that the random acts of violence that they inflict on others are little more than the body language that accompanies their speech.

JuankiMan said:

I like how you've bought the Inquisitions story hook line and sinker.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

They have culture and civilization in the most generous use of the term. Everything they do is geared towards war, and the only thing that isn't are totems to the two gods of war that make up their entire pantheon, some of which actually get outfitted with heavy ordnance to do some stompin' of their own. And of course they don't regard their violent nature as inappropiate since they're absolutely incapable of thinking about anything else. The Imperium isn't geared towards the perpetuation of conflict, it's just that, in Macharius' own words, "there can be no peace in these times". If anything it is geared towards self-perpetuation at any cost. But the Imperium has poets, scribes, remembrancers, farmers, family-men. Non-combatants, people who, if they're lucky, spend their whole lives neither seeing nor wanting war. But orks cannot help but want war. They actually need it. Their own language includes healthy amounts of physical violence and, if they can find no one to stomp readily at hand, they will kill each other with reckless abandon, instinctively knowing that their insane reproduction rate will cover whatever casualties they might suffer.

Seeten said:

Thank you. If you disagree, however, you're free to actually debate it.

JuankiMan said:

The Imperium is on a perpetual war footing. Every resource, every asset, and every world's industry is turned to the sustenance of the armies of the Imperium. It has been this way since the Great Crusade, and because the Imperium was shattered by the Heresy and never properly rebuilt (because those rebuilding it were not the Emperor and had no true sense of HIs true vision), it has remained a civilisation built to sustain eternal warfare. Its fundamental creed is the extinction of all non-human intelligent life in the galaxy in order to perpetuate the dominance of humanity over the stars.

The Imperium was forged in warfare. It is built to sustain that war. Without that war, the entire structure of the Imperium would require colossal change… and none within the ruling class of the Imperium are willing to face such change.

As stated by a character in Mass Effect 3, "War is atrocity committed in the name of survival". The Imperium exists to commit any atrocity in a war against extinction, save those which its all-pervasive militant faith specifically prohibits. By similar token, Orks do not wage war - indeed, they barely have a concept for it, save as a particularly large instance of fighting. They spread conflict and violence, certainly, but they fight for a love of violence more than any particular belief or even basic survival (Orks don't think that far ahead)… indeed, Orks would be perfectly content if they could exist forever, with endless violence but without death.

The Imperium wages war. Orks live to fight. The Imperium is suffused with lies, deception and propaganda. The Orks have no use for such falsehoods.

As an aside… the Eldar have "poets, scribes… farmers… non-combatants", all of whom would seek to avoid the endless conflict that pervades the galaxy. Few enough are the Eldar that even these few must on occasion be cast into the fires of battle. They are a species geared towards "self-perpetuation at any cost", to use your own words.

So the Dark Eldar are actually less evil than humanity because the DE certainly do not seek to exterminate all xenos species. They just want to prey upon them as essential food sources (the chicken soup of the Dark Eldar soul), and food sources must be sustained.

PS - The Dark Eldar really remind me of the Wraith from Stargate Atlantis.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

You seem to be under the impression that the Imperium has any choice on the matter. Between Ork WAAGH!!!s, the Tyranid ever growing menace, the ever-present threat of Chaos, Necron omnicidal campaigns, the ever inescrutable Eldar and their raids, and dozens of minor xenos that are just as likely to be the victims of human hatred as they are of being the aggressors themselves, the Imperium has absolutely no choice whatsoever but to divert a massive chunk of its resources towards its multiple armed forces, and it is still barely enough. Hell, recent estimates calculate that in order to stop the recent Hive Fleets reinforcing Kraken and Leviathan recruitment would need to be increased by 400% throughout three Segmentums.

Of course no one in the ruling class want to face such a change. Such a change would spell doom to the entire human race. If things were different, if humanity wasn't already on the brink of annihilation and assailed from all sides from innumerable threats, then perhaps change might be possible. But again, there can be no peace in these times.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

There was one very lucky Ork Warboss who led his WAAGH!!! straight into the Eye of Terror and invaded a planet-sized daemon who cursed him and his boyz to forever fight and be slaughtered by his daemonic armies over and over again, ever rising from the dead to once more kill and die for all eternity. He couldn't have been happier.

But that's really the beauty of Orkdom. They have only one want, only one desire, and they're absolutely and perfectly desgined for it. Humans fight for many things: to protect, to destroy, out fear, out of duty, out of greed, out of devotion, out of spite, out of selflesness… Orks fight because they're made for fightin' and winnin'. And just like in the Tyranid case, the fact that an Ork kills and maims not out of malice but out of a love for combat is of little consolation to an innocent civilian who gets a choppa to the face while trying to flee the Green Tide.

If you've played Space Marine you might remember a part where the party is traversing a massacred hab-block and Leandros ponders why the Orks would bother to slaughter helpless civilians inside their homes. Sidonus theorizes that maybe it was done to sow terror and demoralize the PDF but Titus corrects him. Such an act wasn't done as part of any military strategy. For the Orks that was sport.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Indeed. In that respect they're exactly the same as the Imperium. The difference is that they are so few in number that, save for Ulthwe, most of their armed forces are technically militia. But to think the Eldar as kind is extremely naive. The Eldar had the galaxy in the palm of their hand once. Before the Eye of Terror, before the return of the Necrons, before the Tyranid Hive Fleets. They ruled the entire galaxy virtually unopposed, and what did they do with that power? They abused it, using the galaxy as their little plaything until, quite literally, their toy broke. And everything and everyone paid the price, their own toll being the highest.

HappyDaze said:

That's quite open to debate. After all, any Dark Eldar worth his salt will joyfully teach you that there are fates far, far worse than death.

With the Imperium it will be quick, it will be brutal and, in many cases, mostly painless. You probably won't feel a thing when the lance strike vaporizes everything you've ever known and loved. The Dark Eldar will make you tearfully beg for the sweet release for death, if you still retain your tear ducts that is. And the joke is on you regardless, because with the Dark Eldar, death is only the beginning.

Don't let yourself be taken alive.

JaunkiMan, while we disagree on the overall ability of a Dark Eldar of average cunning to be trusted amongst the crew of a Rogue Trader, I really can't fault your grasp of the general Dark Eldar temperment, and absolute sadism.