The Aeldari or the Eldar as they were long known to outsiders, are an ancient and highly advanced species of humanoid xenos whose vast empire once extended the width and breadth of the known galaxy.
In its time, the Aeldari Empire was without equal in the galaxy, spreading across both realspace and the Webway. They counted themselves masters of the stars and every Aeldari was born a potent psyker, their abilities often used to both create and power their almost magical technology.
Even death was no barrier, for when the Aeldari’s spirits eventually left their mortal bodies they dissolved peacefully back into the Immaterium to be reborn again in new forms, for the Warp did not thirst for Aeldari souls then as it does today.
But ten millennia ago, the Aeldari’s overweening pride and their fall into amoral and hedonistic practices led to a cataclysm that all but eradicated their kind and resulted in the birth of the Chaos God Slaanesh, known as “She Who Thirsts” to the Aeldari.
Despite their boundless power, the heart of their civilisation was torn out by this catastrophe of their own making, forcing many of the surviving Aeldari to pursue different strategies for survival to protect their souls from being consumed by She Who Thirsts. These strategies have shaped the nature of the surviving Aeldari cultures.
In the 41st Millennium there are five major sub-cultures or kindreds of the Aeldari species: the Asuryani or Craftworld Aeldari, the Drukhari, the Harlequins, the Exodites, and the Ynnari.