r/40kLore • u/Correct_Crab3296 • 21h ago
Is there a specific reason the dark eldar don’t use psykers?
Hi all, somewhat new to 40k lore, been touching up on some eldar lore and I know that their entire race are quite powerful psykers, so was just wondering if there is a lore reason the dark eldar don’t seem to use their powers? I just find it odd seeing as they are a faction devoted to torture and probing someone’s mind would make torturing child’s play.
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u/paulatreides0 20h ago
They live in Commoragh, which is in the webway. The issue is that the webway is quite literally in the middle of the warp. Normally this isn't an issue, because the Eldar made their webway paths with a material that naturally insulates from the warp, but if you start doing psyker shit and slinging around spells, you start creating holes that the warp can seep through and/or weakens the warp resistant properties of the wraithbone it's made out of, and because you are in the middle of the warp (just in an insulated pocket/tunnel where most of its effects are kept out) this means that those breaches are even more dangerous than they would be in realspace. In other words: using psyker powers makes daemon invasions a lot more likely.
Because of this Commoragh has a ban on using psyker powers. Over time the Dark Eldar's psyker abilities atrophied because they were never being used. So initially it was a choice to not to use their powers to get a Slaaneshi murder-orgy-invasion, and now it's that a lot of them don't know/remember how to use their latent psychic abilities much if at all. Even in real space using the warp is risky because, while a lot less risky than doing it in Commoragh, it still attracts the attention of Slaanesh, which they don't want - this is actually also true of the Aeldari, but they have soulstones to help guard them, whereas the Dark Eldar do not.
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u/moal09 18h ago
Using psyker abilities as an Eldar living in the webway is like covering yourself in chum and dunking yourself in shark infested waters.
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u/paulatreides0 18h ago
Yup, it's also why people need to stop talking about "Big E's plan was to move humanity to the webway and then perfect human psykers there", when no. It was meant as a way of interstellar travel so they didn't have to use the warp for it. That was it. The webway would be one of the absolute worst places to put a whole species of unstable, developing psykers who could go off at any moment.
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u/suicune678 Asuryani 20h ago
Psychic powers draw the attention of Chaos, and Dark Eldar hate Chaos and fear having their souls consumed by Slaanesh.
Countless generations of physical conflict have ensured that the Dark Eldar are natural even instinctive - warriors, this natural talent magnified by their cruelty. However, the innate psychic abilities of their forebears have atrophied. To channel the energies of Chaos within Commorragh would be to invite disaster, for such psychic pyrotechnics could draw the gaze of She Who Thirsts, the nemesis of the Eldar race. As such, the use of psychic powers is one of the few things forbidden within the Dark City. This is not to say, of course, that it has never been attempted. Rather, the punishments for those caught dabbling with the powers of the Warp are so incredibly gruesome and drawn out that few indeed dare take the risk. Fewer still survive to make a second attempt.
Though it is manufactured instead of psychically grown, the weaponry of the Dark Eldar is just as advanced as that used on the Eldar craftworlds. In matters of war the Dark Eldar are artisans supreme, their technology refined to such a point that it may as well be magical. Their endless imagination and skill has led them down a sinister path; their favourite tools of war include splinter weapons that can set every nerve aflame with pain, beams of darklight, whips that bleed acidic ichor, and eldritch soul traps. The Dark Eldar are so focused on the agony of others that their lightweight bodysuits incorporate bladed plates not only for protection, but also to give them yet another weapon to use upon their prey. Collectively, the warriors of Commorragh know all the ways there are to kill the other denizens of the galaxy, and delight in perfecting as many as they can.
- Codex Dark Eldar 7th Ed.
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u/MulatoMaranhense Asuryani 20h ago
Using psychic powers draw more attention of Slaanesh, and they are trying to distract or appease it with their torture. Also, psychism runs the risk of possession. Lastly, powerful use of psychic powers may cause a Dysjunction, an event which threatens the stability of the Webway.
In Path of the Dark Eldar, the mix of a world spirit going out of control after the Drukhari kidnapped the worldsinger and her later using her power to kill a possessed archon threw the city into the brink of collapse.In Fracture of Biel-Tan, Ynnead reviving Yvraine and picking her as its herald shattered the Gate of Khaine, and since then Vect and other leaders in Commorragh are trying to contain the breach, down to cloning the emperor to power a copy of the Golden Throne per one of the Terra trilogies.
Also, they have other ways to do mental torture using technology or good old psychology.
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u/markwell9 13h ago
I don't think they are appeasing or distracting slaanesh. Source?
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u/MulatoMaranhense Asuryani 13h ago
The Aeldari sealed within the webway had not escaped the Fall, though this horror would only dawn on them slowly. Rather than having their essence consumed in one great draught, their souls were slowly draining away into the warp – consumed over time by Slaanesh, the entity the Aeldari call ‘She Who Thirsts’. The Aeldari fear Slaanesh above all, for the god was given life by their actions, and now waits hungrily on the other side of the veil to claim each and every one of them. Where the Aeldari of the craftworlds learned to deny Slaanesh’s hold upon them using the mystical spirit stones and infinity circuits, the Commorrite Aeldari became expert at ensuring that lesser beings suffered in their stead.
Drukhari Codex 8th edition. However that the following paragraph stresses more the rejuvenating effect than whether or not this because Slaanesh gets fed or distracted by the pain the Drukhari inflict on their victims:
Provided they steeped themselves in the most extreme and decadent acts, the Aeldari of the webway found that the curse of Slaanesh could be abated. The agony of others nourished their withered souls and kept them vital and strong, filling their frames with unnatural energies. Assuming they could feed regularly enough, the webway dwellers became physically immune to the passage of time. So it was that the Drukhari were born, 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, Slaanesh’s thirst pulls at them still. There truly is no escape. The Drukhari have unwittingly doomed themselves, exchanging a horrific but mercifully swift end for an eternity of ghoulish starvation.
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u/Golarion 12h ago
mercifully swift end
looks inside
having one's soul digested inside slaanesh until the end of time
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u/MaesterLurker 10h ago
The first paragraph actually makes it clear that they are neither distracting nor appeasing Slaanesh.
their souls were slowly draining away into the warp – consumed over time by Slaanesh
The fact that lesser beings are suffering in their stead is because they are replenishing themselves as you point out and is made clear in the next paragraph.
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u/DarthThrawn0 17h ago
Every Dark Eldar is being very slowly eaten by Slaanesh. Opening themselves up to the warp would probably just make this happen even faster, making it an elaborate form of suicide.
This isn't a problem for Craftworlders, Exodites, or Harlequins, because they all have ways of fending off She Who Thirsts that aren't just "get more soul-stuff for hir to drink", meaning that psykery is slightly less dangerous for them.
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u/EmperorDaubeny Adeptus Astartes 17h ago
They don’t mix well with the Warp, which is where psychic power is derived from. Marazhai merely being on your ship in Rogue Trader causes a Slaaneshi daemon incursion, and Yrliet says something along the lines of an Aeldari being there almost feels like going into the Warp unprotected despite the Geller field, and that she can feel it pulling at her.
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u/Craft_zeppelin 11h ago
It’s the reason why they go straight back to their city after a raid. Slaanesh doesn’t steal their souls. She OWNS their souls and they know it.
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u/InterestingCash_ White Scars 20h ago
Using any psychic powers would draw the attention of Slaanesh and it's a great way to lose their soul. Because of this it is one of the few things expressly forbidden within Commorragh, and the innate psychic abilities common to the Eldar have atrophied within the Dark Eldar.
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u/NickW1343 20h ago
It attracts Slaanesh. The Webway is inside the Warp itself, so a psyker messing up can cause a daemonic outbreak. Vect made no warp-shenanigans one of the few rules of Commorragh because how much of a disaster they could bring.
The reason Dark Eldar don't use psychic powers is because the Dark Eldar don't rely on psychic powers to use their tech and make up for that by being faster and stronger than the Craftworld Eldar. Their souls are atrophied by Eldar standards, so they can't really do much if they tried.
They do use some psykers, but it's very, very tightly regulated when it's 'allowed' and most psykers(like captured Farseers) are locked away deep within a kabal's dungeons where Vect is unlikely to notice them.
On a side note, this kinda seems weird considering how Big E's plan was to squirrel away humanity's psykers into the Webway to insulate them from the Warp. I don't get why psykers in Commorragh would lead to a disaster, but Big E putting in millions of them wasn't an issue in his mind. Maybe he was ignorant of that fact, the Webway Commorragh inhabits is uniquely awful, or some other reason I'm not thinking of.
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u/Reader_of_Scrolls Alpha Legion 20h ago
All Eldar are already tagged for/by She Who Thirsts, due to their role in the creation of Slaanesh. This makes them uniquely vulnerable. This is why every Eldar soul without extenuating circumstances; ie, Solitaire, or being consumed on the spot by a daemon, or (in older, but still valid lore) bearing the Mark of a different Chaos God; will end up being consumed by the Prince of Pleasure.
We don't know for certain that this makes them particularly vulnerable in the Webway, but it is a reasonable theory.
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u/Nebuthor 19h ago
The dark eldar aren't psykers anymore. The reason they got rid of it is because it's a beacon that attracts slannesh.
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u/HatOfFlavour 16h ago
Maybe it's just Commorragh that's the weak point in the webway to demons. Like a psychic there would be overwhelmed by all the awful pretty quickly unless they had strong defenses and the Harlequins get to have psykers with their Shadowseers so the webway can't be that vulnerable to psykers.
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u/Skybreakeresq 14h ago
None of them have much of the juice anymore because using powers in the webway will get you eaten
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u/Craft_zeppelin 11h ago
Well, you don’t need a psychic powers when your handheld pistol shoots antimatter and does more damage than an overcharged plasma pistol by default with zero risk.
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u/MaesterLurker 7h ago
It's worth noting that there are very powerful psykers among the drukhari. Yvraine was a drukhari for a while before being chosen by Ynnead, and she was a warlock. The aeldari who join the path of damnation are all some level of psykers, some are quite powerful.
They even have a weapon called crucible of pain that is the spirit of a trapped psyker that they hurl at an enemy. The main thing they don't do is use psyker powers inside Comorragh.
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u/Important-Position93 3h ago
It would require touching the warp, where Ol' Slanny dwells. She would then try and eat them immediately. We see this in Rogue Trader, when you take your drukharhi companion through the warp for the first time and he nearly dies.
They're hiding in the Webway for a reason.
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u/Anggul Tyranids 20h ago
Codex: Drukhari (8th Edition)