Dark Eldar



The Dark Eldar or Eldarith Ynneas in the Eldar Lexicon are the forsaken and corrupt kindred of the Eldar, an ancient and highly advanced alien race of fey humanoids. Their armies, like their Eldar counterparts, usually have the advantages of mobility and advanced technology, though they are often lacking in resilience and numbers. The Dark Eldar revel in piracy, enslavement and torture, and are sadistic in the extreme. Dark Eldar armies make use of various anti-gravity skimmers such as Raiders and Ravagers to launch high speed attacks. They strike with little or no warning, using an interdimensional labyrinth known as the Webway to traverse the galaxy safely and far more quickly than most advanced races are able to with their Warp jumps. The Dark Eldar are unique amongst the intelligent races of the Milky Way Galaxy because they do not live on a settled world or worlds, but rather the bulk of their population is concentrated in one foul city-state -- the Dark City of Commorragh -- that lies within the "ordered" Immaterium of the Eldar Webway. The Dark Eldar are mainly pirates and slavers who prey on targets across the galaxy to feed their unholy appetites for other sentient beings' souls, a terrible desire called the Thirst, though they are sometimes used as mercenaries by other species.

The Dark Eldar are the living embodiments of all that is wanton and cruel in the Eldar character. Highly intelligent and devious to the point of obsession, these piratical people revel in the physical and emotional pain of others, for feeding upon the psychic residue of suffering is the only way they can stave off the slow consumption by the Chaos God Slaanesh of their own souls. The Dark Eldar, particularly their warrior castes, are tall, lithe, white-skinned humanoids. Their alabaster skin is death-like in its pallor, for there is no true life-giving sun within their dark realm to provide colour. Their athletic bodies are defined by whipcord muscle, shaped and enhanced until they are physically stronger on average than their Craftworld Eldar counterparts, as the Dark Eldar prize physical and martial prowess highly. Yet for all their physical beauty, the Dark Eldar are still repugnant monsters. When viewed with the witch-sight of a psyker, the Dark Eldar's black souls are revealed, for they eternally thirst only for the anguish and torment of other thinking beings in order to fill their own infinite emptiness. Unlike their Craftworld Eldar cousins, the Dark Eldar do not integrate their still powerful latent psychic abilities into their culture, and indeed have a great disdain for psykers of any kind. This is because for the Dark Eldar, the use of psychic abilities would only further draw the attention of She Who Thirsts (Slaanesh) upon them, and their souls are already at risk enough of being devoured by the Prince of Chaos.

Origins
The Dark Eldar have fallen from true grace in the most profound of ways. Their roots as a culture lie at the very height of ancient Eldar society, when theirs was perhaps the most highly advanced species in the Milky Way Galaxy. The Eldar once boasted mastery over a civilisation that was the greatest seen in the galaxy since that of the Old Ones. The various cultures of the Eldar that exist today in the 41st Millennium are only shadows of the glory of that ancient Eldar empire.

The true origins of the Dark Eldar can be found in the Fall of the Eldar, the great cataclysm that nearly destroyed the entire Eldar race. It was an event so terrible that not only did it kill trillions of Eldar, but it breached the dimensional barrier between realspace and the Warp, and gave birth to the Chaos God Slaanesh.

The ancient Eldar had perfected their science and technology to such an extent that they could remake planets and quench the light of the very stars at a whim. The need for labour or hard work in Eldar society became nothing but a dim memory of a difficult past. The Eldar, arrogant in the belief that they were now the true masters of their destiny, spent more and more of their time in esoteric pursuits and entertainments intended to escape the ennui that set in over the course of their centuries-long lives of ease and comfort. The Eldar mind and psyche is a thing of duality: it can experience zeniths of bliss and nadirs of suffering far more keenly than that of the other intelligent races, including Mankind. The Eldar were capable of becoming just as irredeemably corrupt as they were of transcending their flaws and touching the divine. With so much power at their hands, the core worlds of the Eldar empire -- once the height of civilisation in the known universe -- became centred solely on the pursuit of individual fulfillment, desire and entertainment.

To understand the reasons for the Fall, it is necessary to know something of the Eldar mind and soul. An Eldar's mind is incredibly complex. Their senses are extremely sharp, able to perceive incredible levels of detail. Their emotions can be so strong that a human’s are merely pale shadows by comparison. They are extremely intelligent; their thought processes are much faster than a human’s. All of this means that an Eldar experiences the universe and all its sensations to a greatly heightened degree compared to a human.

Similarly, an Eldar's soul is much brighter in the Warp than those of "lesser" sentients like humans who do not possess such potent psychic abilities. Eldar are able to affect the nether-realm of the Warp much more than most other intelligent races. Every Eldar is a latent psychic and has the ability to become a very powerful psyker with training. It is the psychic strength of the Eldar's souls that was one of the causes of their downfall.

Before the Fall, during humanity's Dark Age of Technology, the Eldar had an immense galaxy-spanning empire comprising millions of worlds, larger and more powerful than even the Imperium of Man at the height of its power. The Eldar lived in relative peace—barbarian races such as the Orks were kept at easily manageable numbers and never had the strength to threaten the might of the Eldar empire. The humans were not yet virulently xenophobic and did not have a large interstellar domain, and the Tyranid Hive Fleets remained unknown. The C'tan and Necrons, the ancient foes of the Eldar, had been defeated long before and still remained dormant.

Life on the Eldar worlds was idyllic, with fantastically sophisticated machines that took care of all the labour and manufacturing required to keep an advanced society functioning, leaving the Eldar free to indulge in other, more aesthetic pursuits. With all menial work taken care of for them, the Eldar became indolent and decadent. They began to explore more deeply the arts of pleasure, delving ever deeper into hedonism. This descent into decadence spanned millennia. Tradition and order disintegrated as the Eldar pursued the limits of the pursuit of pleasure. Sects called Pleasure Cults were formed, dedicated to achieving the highest levels of hedonistic sensation, and their ceremonies and practices became ever more wild, eventually devolving into violence against one another and even the ritual sacrifice of their own kind. Some Eldar hated what their race had become and left the Eldar homeworlds for the unexplored and virgin Maiden Worlds, or left on the newly-constructed Craftworlds, leaving the Pleasure Cults to their madness.

Among the pleasure-seekers and the interminably curious of the Eldar were those whose pursuit of excess became ever more extreme. These included a great proportion of the aristocracy of ancient Eldar society, who possessed the wealth and time to truly explore the meanings of decadence. One by one, the leaders of the Pleasure Cults that were becoming the centrepiece of Eldar society became obsessed with their own power. They relocated their headquarters to the Labyrinth Dimension known as the Eldar Webway, for so great was their political influence that they could command the construction of entire sub-realms just for themselves. Unseen, these Pleasure Cult lords continued to grow in power and influence, initiating more and more of the ancient Eldar population into their strange and shadowy creeds of decadence.

The Eldar are the most psychically gifted of all sentient beings in the galaxy and as the corruption gradually seduced them, the echoes of their ecstasy and agony began to ripple through time and space. In the parallel dimension of the Immaterium, the Warp, the reflections of these intense experiences began to coalesce, as the shifting tides of the chaotic Empyrean can take form around the raw emotions emitted by the sentient beings of the material universe and attract even more of such similar psychic energies to themselves. The constant stream of individual selfishness and indulgence pouring into the Warp from the Eldar empire nourished and empowered that which lay within - a nascent God of pleasure and pain, content to wait and to grow.

As the Eldar empire sank into corruption and decadence, brother turned against brother in pursuit of ever more extreme and darker pleasures. Some of the wiser Eldar, however, foresaw the disaster that was approaching their society and fled from the Eldar core worlds to safety. The first of these were the Exodites, who chose to establish a network of Eldar planetary colonies known as the Maiden Worlds far from the blighted heart of the empire. Many of these Exodite colonies still exist in the galaxy, their cultures living in a symbiotic relationship with the world-spirits of the planets they call home and protect. Among the last Eldar to escape from the empire's core before the Fall were the ancestors of the present day's Craftworld Eldar. As their society collapsed into civilisation-wide insanity these Eldar recoiled in horror from what they were becoming. Realising that they stood upon the brink of destruction they bend their considerable resources to the construction of the massive Craftworlds, the graceful spaceborne cities that were the size of small moons. The Eldar of the Craftworlds retreated into asceticism and spiritual introspection, preserving what they could of their ancient ways and culture before the time of the Pleasure Cults. They left the core worlds of the Eldar empire for the dubious safety of deep space, to the laughter and contempt of those who remained behind. Some even managed to flee far enough to escape the terrible destruction of the Fall.

Meanwhile, as mentioned above, something terrible was stirring in the Warp. The long millennia of Eldar hedonism had made a massive impact in the psychic realm of Chaos. Within the Warp the decadent Eldar civilization was giving shape to a new Power of Chaos, which grew and grew over thousands of years, getting stronger and more defined until suddenly it sparked into an intelligence – a shatteringly huge and malign intelligence, with an immense and bottomless thirst for Eldar souls. This was the birth of the Chaos God Slaanesh, the Dark Prince of Pleasure, better known as She Who Thirsts to the Eldar, who see Slaanesh as inherently female.

This process lasted for thousands of years, corresponding to the historical era that was Mankind's Dark Age of Technology, although when Slaanesh finally came into being the results within the material universe were apocalyptic and sudden. As depravity riddled every aspect of Eldar society, the Pleasure Cults sought ever more violent thrills. Before long the streets of Eldar cities ran with their blood. The elegant architecture of their palaces became battlegrounds as the Eldar preyed upon each other, revelling in the cruelest of crimes. Their insanity and tainted passions poured into the Warp until it finally achieved critical mass. With an apocalyptic bellow that tore the heart out of the Eldar empire, a new Chaos God was born, Slaanesh the Dark Prince of Excess. An almighty psychic shockwave scythed across the galaxy, destroying countless billions of Eldar souls as Slaanesh's birth cries echoed through the material realm. The souls of almost every Eldar were stripped from them in an instant and devoured by the new-born Chaos God in a cataclysm of pain and terror. There were few survivors. Most were driven mad, their minds trapped half in the real world and half in the swirling insanity of the Warp. A great Warp rift was created in the material universe at the site of what had once been the epicentre of the Eldar civilisation, encompassing almost the entire Eldar empire and creating the Eye of Terror, thus marking the dawn of the era known to humanity as the Age of Strife. World after Eldar world had fallen into the Warp, to later be known as the Crone Worlds. Slaanesh gorged itself upon the Eldar's horror and despair. Unstoppable in its ascendancy, the new God consumed the ancient deities of the Eldar empire and scattered their psychic remains to the far corners of the Empyrean.

The Eldar civilisation was gone. All that was left of the Eldar race were the Exodites of the farthest-flung Maiden Worlds, the Craftworld Eldar who had travelled far enough to escape the aftershock of destruction caused by Slaanesh's birth and the formation of the Eye of Terror, and those adherents of the Pleasure Cults who were hidden in the sub-realms of the Webway. Much of the Webway was shattered into ruin by the Fall of the Eldar, but unlike the Craftword Eldar who fled the catastrophe in realspace, those Eldar who had built their own jealously-guarded empires in the Webway remained physically unaffected by Slaanesh's birth. The echoes of the new God's apoetheosis still resounded within them, but unlike their kin in realspace they had escaped destruction. In their arrogance, they did not end their quest for excess and decadent pleasure, not even for a momentary respite following the death of their empire. Repentance and atonement were meaningless concepts for a people that no longer acknowledge any limits on their actions, regardless of the consequences.

The change that was wrought upon those Eldar sealed within the Webway was far more subtle. Rather than having their psychic essences, their souls, consumed in one great draught by Slaanesh, their souls slowly drained away into the Warp, taken over time by She Who Thirsts. The Eldar hate and fear Slaanesh above all other things, for she was given life by their actions and yet she waits hungrily to claim each and every one of them, now or later. Where the Eldar of the Craftworlds learned to deny Slaanesh's hold upon them by using the mystical Spirit Stones, the Infinity Circuits and the philosophies of the Eldar Paths to safeguard their souls from consumption by She Who Thirsts, the Eldar of the Webway became exceptionally good at ensuring that other beings suffered in their place. As long as they steeped themselves in the most evil and savagely decadent acts, the Eldar of the Webway found that the curse of Slaanesh upon their race could be avoided. The agony of others nourished their diminished souls and kept them vital and strong, filling their spare frames with unnaturally robust energies. Assuming that they could feed regularly enough upon the miseries of other intelligent beings, the Eldar of the Webway became psychically immune to the passage of time. So it was that the Dark Eldar were born, a race of sadistic murderers and torturers who feed upon the suffering of others in order to prevent the slow death of their own immortal souls. Ten thousand standard years later, in the 41st Millennium of Mankind, Slaanesh's Thirst consumes them still. There truly is no escape, for the Dark Eldar have only exchanged a horrible but quick death for an eternity of infernal hunger and the infinite emptiness wrought by self-absorption.

Deep in the Webway after the Fall, the groups of Pleasure Cult survivors came together and laid the foundations of a vast new sub-realm that they named Commorragh, the Dark City. Commorragh was built on the foundation of the great port-city within the Webway of the same name that had lain outside the jurisdiction of all the Eldar authorities of their lost empire. More and more Eldar survivors from other sub-realms in the Webway began to arrive and soon added their own regions to the new realm, slowly making it even larger and more heavily populated, until today it is a vast place, an infernal city of suffering and death. To this day, the Dark Eldar raid and pillage the galaxy at large from their hidden sub-realms in the Webway, sowing as much misery and destruction as possible and stealing away millions of captive slaves to their lairs within the Dark City to be exploited for their own horrible ends. They are experts in the techniques of torture as well as mental and physical degradation, as the longer a Dark Eldar can drag out the torture of a slave the more psychic nourishment he can take from him or her. A Dark Eldar who has recently fed upon the suffering of others shines with a cold and startling aura of power, his physical form restored to beautiful, youthful perfection even as his soul rots within its pristine shell. A Dark Eldar who is not allowed to partake of such energies for long enough will become a physical shadow of his former beauty, desperately hunting for a taste of misery to stave off the gnawing thirst in the depths of his withered soul.

Close-Combat Weapons
The Dark Eldar employ a number of hand-held weapons designed to eviserate, lacerate and incise at close quarters. Although varying widely in design and use, all employ a similar technology in their construction. They are built from very lightweight materials, with blades honed to a mon-molecular edge capable of cutting through even Ceramite armour plating when sufficient force is employed. Weapons incorporating powerful shock fields have also been recovered by Imperial forces, and these devices utilise an energy generation and transference system as yet beyond the comprehension of human Tech-Adepts. The following are the most common close combat weapons employed by the Dark Eldar:
 * Agoniser - An Agoniser is an extrememly sophisticated close combat weapon that acts as a Power Weapon and drives a victim's sensorium haywire, causing excruciatingly severe pain as a victim's nerves burn out through constant overstimulation, producing exquisite agony. Though Agonisers come in a variety of forms, the most common are whips or barbed flails.
 * Bloodstone - A Bloodstone is a rare and exotic weapon forged from the broken Soul Stone of an Eldar Exarch. It can be used in close proximity to an enemy, unleashing a single pulse of baleful energy that will boil their blood.
 * Cluster Caltrops - Cluster Caltrops serve as an antipersonnel weapon made up of two or more sharp nails or spines arranged in such a manner that one of them always points upward from a stable base in the form of a tetrahedron. Caltrops serve to slow down the advance of foot soldiers and mounts. Caltrops are also used against wheeled vehicles with pneumatic tires. This weapon is most commonly employed by Dark Eldar Reavers who use these small but effective antipersonnel weapons against enemy troops as they swoop past on their deadly Jetbikes.
 * Crystal Gauntlets - Crystal Gauntlets are extraplanar in origin, able to mysteriously sprout and regrow a deadly profusion of blades. These deadly weapons are often employed by Dark Eldar Wyches in melee.
 * Demiklaives - A Demiklaive is a variant of the deadly Klaive. These vicious Power Weapons are finely honed to a mono-molecular edge and can either be wielded separately or clasped together to form a much larger blade that confers an even deadlier strike against an unfortunate victim. These weapons are commonly employed by Dark Eldar Incubi.
 * Djin Blades - Djin Blades are Power Weapons that usually take the form of blades of polished crystal with a scowling bestial face engraved upon their hilts. Each blade has a bloodthirsty and resentful sentience of its own, usually that of a former rival bound eternally to the service of the blade's owner.
 * Electrified Shardnet - An Electrofied Shardnet is a specially crafted and weighted net that can be thrown over an enemy in order to ensnare them. The combined weight and the painful electrical shock of the net is both painful and debilitating. When successful, the victim is then attacked with an extendable twin-bladed impaler while they are entangled, ensuring they cannot escape alive. Another tactic that is often used is to ensnare an enemy's weapon in the shardnet and pull it out of their grasp, leaving the opponent defenceless. This weapon is commonly employed by Wyches.
 * Electrocorrosive Whip - An Electrocorrosive Whip is a deadly Power Weapon whose lash is a tongue of venom-soaked polymer with a high-yield dynamo embedded in its hilt. Its touch is painful and debilitating in the extreme, sapping the strength and robbing the will to fight. This weapon is commonly employed by Wyches and Beast Masters.
 * Flesh Gauntlet - A clawed glove fitted with far too many syringe-like spines and serum-filled vials, the flesh gauntlet can inject potent electrosteroids that force rapid, unnatural, and uncontrollable growth. Its victim will literally outgrow his own skin, bursting apart in a welter of streaming, heaving matter, and leaving little more than a pile of twitching overgrown muscle, ruptured skin, and shattered bone. The deadliness of the weapon is hardly offset by the fact that many models require a short period of time to prepare a new batch of electrosteroids after each use.
 * Fusion Pistol - The Fusion Pistol is a compact hand-held Melta Weapon whose elegance belies its potency.
 * Hellglaives - These long, double-ended polearms are the favoured weapons of Hellions, who employ the sharpened hooks on each end to pull themselves around corners and past obstacles, while the broad heads and symmetrical balance of each hellglaive serves to aid a Hellion's stability in flight. As weapons, they are no less useful — a hellglaive's balance and razor-sharp blades allow a Hellion to strike down multiple enemies with every pass, if he is sufficiently skilled.
 * Huskblade - A Huskblade is a Power Weapon that appears as if made of cracked and pitted bone, a husk blade leaves faint smoke trails as it passes through the air, and instantly evaporates any moisture that comes into contact with its blade. Victims slashed or stabbed by such a blade are reduced to shrivelled corpses that turn to dust in moments, and even those lucky enough to only suffer a glancing hit find much of their vitality dragged away by these deadly weapons.
 * Hydra Gauntlets - These outlandish weapons are the defining tools of Hydrae, and the bladed gauntlets they wield are said to have been forged beyond the petty confines of reality, in some strange and distant pocket of existence. The blades on each gauntlet are grown from a strange crystalline substance that continually renews itself, sprouting new blades to replace those shorn off or blunted. Hydra gauntlets are only ever equipped in pairs by Hydra Wyches, and though one could theoretically be used alone, it would be both uncouth and far less effective. Hydra Guantlets are commonly worn by Dark Eldar Wyches.
 * Impaler - An impaler is unremarkable in itself, a simple twin-bladed shortspear that can be rammed deep into the body of a victim. Impalers are seldom used alone, and most of those who wield them are Yraqnae, who use them in conjunction with shardnets.
 * Klaives - Klaives are great Power Swords favoured by the deadly Incubi. These weapons are considered to be a masterpiece of balance and form and the one true weapon of true Dark Eldar warriors, though Klaivex war-leaders sometimes favour variants such as the more versatile Demiklaives.
 * Mindphase Gauntlet - Less a weapon and more a control device, mindphase gauntlets can stop a creature in its tracks with a single touch. A fleeting moment's contact is sufficient for the gauntlet’s discharge to paralyse muscle and dull the mind.
 * Razorflail - Razorflails are lightweight swords composed of a number of interlocking blades joined by a cable. At a moment's notice, these blades can be separated, turning a sword into a many-bladed lash. In the hands of a skilled wielder, these are almost impossible to parry and can be woven past almost any defence. Razorflails are commonly wielded in pairs, the Wych surrounding herself with a swirling wall of deadly blades as she dances across the battlefield.
 * Shardnet - Shardnets are a wire mesh covered in tiny barbs that dig into flesh and tear with every moment of struggle, while simultaneously administering electrical shocks that render a victim incapable of self-defence and cause him to jerk and twitch against the barbed net.
 * Stunclaw - A Stunclaw is a close-combat weapon that confers additional strength on its bearer and can also be used to grapple to snare and entrap an enemy leader. This weapon is commonly employed by Hellions.
 * Venomblade - This weapon is a common sign of wealth and power amongst the Dark Eldar aristocracy. Each venomblade has thousands of microscopic pores that continually exude a distilled cocktail of hypertoxins. The slightest scratch from a venomblade is sufficient to fell even the mightiest of foes.
 * Wych Knife - At first glance, there is little to distinguish these blades from a commoner’s knife or a Kabalite Warrior's flaying blade. However, subtle details of their construction, such as the pattern of serrations, the precise curvature of the blade, or the placement of perforations, influence their balance and the cuts they inflict so that in the hands of an expert they can inflict grievous wounds and find the weaknesses in all but the toughest armour.

Long-Range Weapons

 * Disintegrator Cannon - Utilising tiny quantities of plasma stolen from enslaved suns, the disintegrator cannon is a sophisticated weapon, remaining cool to the touch even after a sustained barrage in spite of the boiling energies within. Disintegrator cannons are most commonly encountered mounted onto vehicles like Raiders and Ravagers.
 * Heat Lance - The long-barrelled Heat Lance is a powerful device that combines the focus and precision of laser weaponry with the searing potency of melta weaponry, creating a weapon able to melt armour plate from further away than most comparable Meltaguns, but with the fine precision of the most finely-honed Eldar laser weapon.
 * Hexrifle - Thousands of years ago, the Dark City found itself host to a plague of a quite unusual nature. While the plague itself has long since been stopped, samples of the disease still exist in phials within the laboratories of Haemonculi, to employ as a weapon against their enemies. Each hexrifle is unique, created for an individual Haemonculus to deliver this potent and exotic plague in battle, but all function in essentially the same way. Crystalline cylinders containing the tiniest quantity of the disease are fired from the rifles, shattering upon impact and exposing the target to the plague. For all but the hardiest of victims, this momentary exposure is sufficient for the plague to begin its vile work, turning flesh and bone into glass and leaving a transparent, flawless statue where once was a living creature.
 * Liquifier Gun - This baroque collection of pipes and tubes projects a torrent of highly corrosive fluids that can melt through anything it touches. Typically carried by Grotesques, Wracks, and other servants of the Haemonculi, these weapons are most commonly fuelled by the corrosive ichor that passes for blood in such creatures. The devastation wreaked by a liquifier gun's noxious payload depends entirely on how much of the fluid splashes across a target. While not strictly a Flame weapon, a liquifier gun functions in almost exactly the same way, including a chance of being set aflame — in truth, this represents a quantity of the corrosive liquid lingering on the target and continuing to eat away at flesh and armour, and thus deals damage with a toxic quality, in place of the normal damage from fire.
 * Phantasm Grenade Launcher - Wealthy Dark Eldar warriors often wear specially modified backpacks that can hurl a volley of small, disc-shaped grenades from twin tubes. These grenades are made from a highly reactive substance that, upon contact with the air, dissolves into clouds of psychotropic gas so potent that to even catch a whiff of it fills the mind with horrific nightmares and delusions. This weapon is often employed by Dark Eldar Kabalite Warriors.
 * Shredder - The shredder unleashes an expanding mesh of monofilaments with miniscule barbs along their length. The mesh entangles the victim in an invisible net that slices apart the target as it struggles.
 * Stinger Pistol - A wicked weapon with a cruel purpose, a stinger pistol delivers horrifyingly deadly toxins via the thin needles that it fires.

Heavy Weapons
Like all Eldar technology, the heavy weaponry that is employed by the Dark Eldar utilises an order of technology far different from that employed by the other sentient races of the galaxy. The following is a list of the most common heavy weapons employed by the Dark Eldar:
 * Dark Lance - The Dark Lance is comparable in its role to that of a standard issue Imperial Lascannon. Its primary function is to destroy heavily armoured targets. However, the Dark Lance does not employ standard laser technology, but instead fires a stream of "Darklight." This dark matter substance works by reacting catastrophically with its target, producing a blast that is more than capable of destroying any vehicle regardless of the thickness of its armour, or totally vapourising a foot soldier.
 * Disintegrator - A Disintegrator employs a more unstable form of "Darklight" dark matter and can be used in several firing modes, unleashing a single ball of ravening energy or a lethal salvo of powerful energy bolts.

Special Weapons
There are a number of weapons entirely unique to the Dark Eldar, although they draw upon the same technology found in the weaponry of the Craftworld Eldar. The following is a list of special weapons commonly employed by the Dark Eldar:
 * Crucible of Malediction - The Crucible of Malediction is a weapon used by the Dark Eldar to neutralise the psychic powers of enemy psykers, a necessary defence for a species that cannot risk ever developing its own powerful latent psychic abilities for fear of drawing the attention of Slaanesh, She Who Thirsts. No one knows what dark arts the Dark Eldar use to create their Crucibles of Malediction. Each Crucible appears to contain the trapped spirits of psykers of many species captured and tortured by the Dark Eldar in their Dark City of Commorragh. Once released, these spirits move across the battlefield and unleash a psychic cacophony that only other psykers can sense and that can drive them insane if their psychic defences prove too weak to survive the assault. The most powerful Crucibles of Malediction contain the trapped and tortured souls of Eldar Seers.
 * Darklight Weapons - Darklight Weapons are crafted in the weapon shops of Commorragh that are infamous for their ability to cheat the natural laws of physics in order to design ever more efficient ways to kill. Blasters, Blast Pistols and Dark Lances epitomise this, for they do not employ standard laser technology but instead fire a stream of what is, for want of a better term, "darklight." The origin of this substance is unknown, although some amongst the savants of Commorragh claim that it is a form of dark matter that has been recovered from the event horizons of black holes, Warp Storms, and other celestial phenomena of great magnitude. Darklight works by reacting catastrophically with its target, producing a blast that can bore a massive hole in a vehicle regardless of armour, or vapourise a foot solider in an instant. Even to perceive a beam of darklight without the correct protection leaves permanent slash-scars upon the retina.
 * Destructor - The Destructor fires a stream of virulent organo-acidic compounds which can melt through armour and sear flesh. The effects of these toxins can inlcude blood vessel explosion or implosion, pharyngal contraction, extensive haemolysis, skeletal disintegration, sclerotic corrosion, intercostal spasm, hyper-reacted thermoreceptors and chemoreceptors, Eustachian damage, retinal scarring, cardiac and respiratory atrophy and aqueous humour deprivation. In simple terms, the victims are hideously blinded and disoriented, their skin feels as if it is burning, their respiration and even the circulation of their blood is erratic and extremely painful.
 * Haywire Blaster - Haywire Blasters are long-barrelled weapons that siphon the electromagnetic energy crackling around Commorragh's highest aeries to later release it in a terrifyingly powerful burst. A well-aimed Haywire Blaster can cripple an enemy tank's or aircraft's control systems in a single shot.
 * Haywire Grenades - Haywire Grenades are used for disabling or crippling enemy vehicles. They send out a powerful electromagnetic pulse that shorts out and destroys electrical circuits.
 * Mindphase Gauntlet - A Mindphase Gauntlet is a special close-combat weapon that acts as an advanced neural controller that saps both the strength and will of an enemy. It can stop a rampaging foe in his tracks with a single touch.
 * Shredder - The Shredder is a hand-held pistol that unleashes a web or mesh of monofilament wire, often with minuscule barbs or serrations along its lines. This mesh entangles the victim, slicing them to pieces as they struggle. Its dense cloud is also highly effective at finding weak points in a vehicle's armour, but is thankfully short-ranged.
 * Splinter Weapons - Splinter Weapons fire shards of splintered crystal using a powerful magno-electric pulse. These shards are covered in incredibly virulent and fast-acting toxins the better to ensure a painful death. The favoured armament of the Kabalite Warrior is the Splinter Rifle, often fired on the move from the ballustrade of a Raider or Venom transport. The Splinter Pistol, its handheld cousin, is an elegant sidearm beloved of assassins and street fighters across the galaxy; though it is designed for precision short-ranged shots, the toxins inside its reservoir pod are no less deadly. Larger variations of Splinter Weaponry are often employed, such as the Shardcarbine, popular amongst the winged Scourges, and the Splinter Cannon, a heavy weapon able to mow down entire squads at a time.

Dark Eldar Equipment

 * Clone Field - In place of coherent fields of energy, a clone field projects holographic duplicates of the wearer, all identical in aspect and moving in perfect and lifelike synchrony. Only through trial and error can the true wearer be identified, and few combatants have the time to find the real threat amidst a swarm of falsehoods.
 * Ghostplate Armour - Constructed of strange resinous materials and shot through with pockets of lighter-than-air gases, each suit of ghostplate armour provides considerable protection while weighing far less than any comparable panoply. The expense of a single suit of ghostplate is such that only the wealthiest and most influential Dark Eldar can obtain it. Each suit is further reinforced by a force field.
 * Gnarlskin - The Dark Eldar Haemonculi and their hideous, fleshy creations have toughened, scarred hides that have been subjected to so many brands, burns and abrasions they have become leathery and resistant to enemy blows.
 * Incubus Warsuit - All Dark Eldar Incubi wear a close-fitting suit of ritual battle armour that can turn aside all but the most well-placed blows.
 * Kabalite Warrior Armour -These suits of segmented plates are commonly worn by Kabalite Warriors of all kinds, from the half-born murderers who have dragged themselves up from the depths of Commorragh to the sneering Trueborn in their palatial spires. Each suit of armour is held in place by a variety of barbs and hooks that dig deep into the wearer's flesh and play against his nerve bundles. His senses heightened by his own pain, the simple act of donning this armour prepares him for battle.
 * Shadow Field - A shadow field is an arcane Dark Eldar device that creates a defence that is virtually impossible to pierce. Projecting a dark miasma of energy around the wearer, the field is proof against almost any attack, and the warrior within cannot be easily targeted. However, should one manage to penetrate this miasmic aura, the field's instability causes it to collapse almost immediately.
 * Soul-Trap - Though Soul-Traps vary in size and appearance, from folding pyramidal prisms to jewelled skulls engraved with vampiric runes, they all have one ghastly function -- to capture the soul of a powerful enemy within its confines and empower the bearer with the stolen energies.
 * Vexator Mask - A Vexator Mask often takes the form of a delicate skein of bone and skin adorned with runes of confusion and illusion. It projects the image of the viewer's most trusted friend, beloved ruler, or loved one, often buying the wearer a second of precious time. An enemy will balk at the sight of such highly personal illusions and may not attack the bearer -- until it is too late.
 * Webway Portal - The Webway Portal is a portable form of the portals used to link together places via the Webway and is used by Dark Eldar raiders to unleash their attacks into realspace.
 * Wychsuit - Wychsuits and similar garments are little more than flexible bodysuits, adorned in an eclectic manner with armoured plates and reinforced panels. Those worn by Wyches often provide protection only to the side of their bodies that they habitually turn towards the enemy, while Hellions commonly wear armoured collars and vambraces, and many Reavers favour masked cowls and heavily padded shoulders. Regardless, it is difficult to strike a Dark Eldar warrior past even the tiny amounts of armour that these suits provide.
 * Xenohide Clothing - Crafted from the flayed hides of arena beasts or slaves (living or dead), these garments are common clothing amongst the Dark Eldar of the Nexus of Shadows. The toughened nature of the material helps ward off would-be murderers and other common hazards of the Bonespires and the Shadow Arteries alike.

Drugs and Poisons

 * Combat Drugs - Though they drastically shorten the life expectancy of those who take them, drugs and stimulants are in widespread use throughout Dark Eldar society. The fashions and the vagaries of supply and demand commonly influence which ones are used during a given battle or realspace raid, but certain drugs remain popular amongst the inhabitants of Commorragh and the Nexus of Shadows. Dark Eldar combat drugs are designed to enhance Eldar physiology, and do not function in the bodies of any other creature.
 * Accelerai - This stimulant alters the warrior’s adrenal glands, producing a substance that is far more potent. Harvested from the brain of a small, multi-legged, and extremely aggressive predator found on the ruined shell of the Light of Terra and certain Space Hulks that drift through the Koronus Expanse, Accelerai accelerates the user's attacks to a blistering tempo.
 * Corpse Obmulen - First found growing amidst the corpses of fallen warriors during the taking of the Nexus of Shadows, Corpse Obmulen appears to be a cousin of the better-known Dusk Lotus and seems, against all odds, to have been on the Gaelan Sphere longer than the Dark Eldar. Since their arrival, however, the blood-drinking plant has flourished, and covers many pits of discarded corpses with an ashen veil. Though inherently toxic, Corpse Obmulen is a popular additive to steroidal compounds that saturates muscle fibres and makes them superhumanly resistant to the stress and tension of use, allowing the warrior to exert himself to an extreme level for a protracted period of time.
 * Shudderstep - Tailored from a number of incredibly dangerous ingredients, including grass harvested from specific Yu'Vath grave worlds and miniscule quantities of the stasis venom of the Ariadne Helspider, Shudderstep is designed to hyper-stimulate fast-twitch muscle fibres. A dose of Shudderstep enables a warrior to run at incredible speeds.
 * Murder's Boon - Distilled from the cranial fluid of slaves who have been poisoned with a combination of other drugs and toxins including Corpse Obmulen and Liquid Agony, Murder's Boon amplifies a warrior's killer instincts.
 * Eviscerine - Eviscerine is a derivative of the rare but seemingly uninteresting viperleaf found on certain worlds within the Koronus Expanse. Though The Sutured Helix does not share exactly how it transforms this barbed vine into a drug as effective as Eviscerine, the raw material nonetheless commands a high price on the Nexus of Shadows. Cold Trader groups such as the Consorvana Ring exchange vast quantities of viperleaf for xenos artefacts, and know better than to ask why the devious aliens want this particular plant. Once refined into a useable drug, Eviscerine is a favourite of warriors who prefer to kill at close range. Heightening the adrenaline sensitivity of perception centres of the brain and the conductivity of synapses and nerve fibres, a dose of Eviscerine makes a warrior more able to perceive and avoid the attacks and defences of his enemies.
 * Soul Echo - The coalesced essence of a being who has been tortured not only unto death but far beyond it, Soul Echo is almost pure pain, containing the last tormented gasp of a spirit bound in eternal agony.

The Toxic Spectrum
The Dark Eldar are experts in the many applications of poisons and toxins. Entire districts of Commorragh are given over to the manufacture of substances that can kill in countless thousands of different ways, and many an aristocrat's court contains a master poisoner whose gifts can transform the merely agonising into the unrelentingly lethal. Many weapons employed by the Dark Eldar exude, are impregnated with, or otherwise employ potent hypertoxins, and most warriors have their own favourite cocktail of poisons. The toxic spectrum is something that all Dark Eldar appreciate with an artist's insight, and personal aesthetics are as important as effect when it comes to poisoning a rival, enemy or prey-beast. The following is the most common poisons employed by the Dark Eldar:
 * Essence of Perfect Vitriol - Perfect Vitriol is the universal solvent, a corrosive agent capable of dissolving absolutely everything. Created by the Stryxis for reasons they refuse to explain and traded to the denizens of the Nexus of Shadows for use in their arenas and shadowy plots, no substance is proof against this liquid's fury, and it must be stored in magnetic suspension because no material container exists that can hold it. Not to be stymied in their quest to weaponise everything in their grasp, the Dark Eldar of the Nexus of Shadows cleverly use fields and other exotic distribution systems to imbue their blades and projectiles with the vapours produced by this substance without degrading their own equipment too quickly for it to be of use.
 * Final Breath - A targeted paralytic agent that is derived from a plant native to Burnscour and brought to the Nexus of Shadows accidentally along with several beasts for the pits, Final Breath causes rapid respiratory shutdown, swiftly making it impossible for the target to breathe. The Dark Eldar first discovered the effect of the plant when a number of slaves tasked with cleaning the pen of a Clawed Fiend were discovered dying after inhaling its deadly pollen. The Dark Eldar of the Nexus of Shadows were most impressed by the agonising death that this humble plant had inflicted upon their slaves, and so they immediately set about finding a way to turn the plant's toxic pollen into a weapon.
 * Heartfire - Heartfire is a substance produced by the razor-spined fungi that inhabit certain parts of the Gaelan Sphere, and is found in the greatest concentrations in those specimens that have made their home in the shafts that house the coolant for many of the sphere's mysterious processes. Apparently a defence mechanism against predators, this poison coats the spines and self-replicates within a victim's body, polluting his blood with a kinetically unstable chemical that may ignite at any moment. Vigourous motion is often sufficient to set the poisoned blood off, consuming the victim with a fire within his own veins and arteries, burning up the oxygen in his blood.
 * Liquid Agony - Popular amongst nobles of the Kabal of the Splintered Talon involved in realspace raids against particularly valuable targets and those fighting rivals at home alike, Liquid Agony is a potent neurotoxin that amplifies nerve conductivity to extreme levels, turning even the weight of clothing and the caress of the air into torturous sensations. Liquid Agony is based upon the viscous bodily fluids of the Sandsnapper of Vaporious, a rare, segmented serpent that inhabits the deep deserts. Some within the depths of the Nexus of Shadows imbibe tiny quantities of Liquid Agony to heighten the impact of sensations, but overdoses are all too common and leave the wretched beings in a state of perpetual agony just long enough for a hungry soul to find the source of the screams and drink deep of the self-inflicted pain.
 * Nightmare Philtre - This toxin creates terror in its victims, nothing more or less. Though the exact composition of this poison is a jealously guarded secret of The Sutured Helix, dark whispers tell of how Archon Salaine Morn commissioned the Haemonculus Drecarus to create it shortly after her forces slew a Rak'Gol raiding party that had simultaneously attacked the human settlement she was in the midst of pillaging. It is said that she brought one of the creatures' corpses back to the Haemonculus as a gift to entice his services, and he repaid her with this serum of hell-dreams some days later. By chemically influencing the "fight or flight" reaction, and then triggering it, an overwhelming sense of panic and dread afflicts the victim, without obvious cause or reason — something that is arguably more terrifying than being afraid of anything specific. In many cases, the horrified psyche actually tries to invent some fearful apparition to justify the terror, a feat of self-delusion that only serves to act as a beautiful accompaniment to the Dark Eldar feeding upon this unreasoning panic. Hard-won experience has taught the Dark Eldar that this particular poison does not have an effect on all of their foes - even the most concentrated dose does not influence a Space Marine in any way, and it seems to merely enrage Orks.
 * Sanguine Exodus - This toxin causes the victim to begin exsanguinating rapidly, his blood pouring from every wound as if seeking to escape from his body. Sanguine Exodus in part on the saliva of the Culamia Bloodsucker that is all too common on the world of Burnscour and certain other Death Worlds in the Koronus Expanse, and has become popular amongst the Wyches of the Withered Blade Cult, as it allows them to kill with even greater elegance and conservation of motion.
 * Vitae Rebellion - A cruel and savage toxin, Vitae Rebellion is a genetic serum of incredible potency created in the laboratories of The Sutured Helix and sold to Dark Eldar nobles on the Nexus of Shadows who desire a certain explosive flair to their kills. Vitae Rebellion aggressively transforms the biochemistry of its victims, transmogrifying critical fluids into chemicals and compounds that react violently with one another. The end result is gruesome and spectacular, as the victim detonates in a shower of mutated gore.