Timeline of the Warhammer 40,000 Universe - Fall of the Aeldari (M25-M30): Before the Fall of their potent interstellar empire, the Aeldari were a technologically and psychically-advanced humanoid species, generally considered the most powerful intelligent species in the entire galaxy. Their technology had advanced so far that little or no labour was required by individual Aeldari to provide the daily necessities of life. As a result of the sheer boredom and ennui that resulted, at some point during the 25th Millennium A.D. by the Terran calendar, groups of Aeldari began forming what were known as "Pleasure Cults" dedicated to the pursuit of every pleasure and sensation that life had to offer their kind.Despite the prediction of the reclusive Aeldari Seers that warned of impending doom if the Aeldari did not change their hedonistic ways, government within the Aeldari Empire soon collapsed and the moral degeneration of their homeworlds and various colony worlds continued unimpeded. As the pursuit of ever more extreme experiences reached its height, death reigned in the streets of Aeldari cities, hunter and hunted each being part of a twisted ritual of destruction that consumed millions in orgies of savage bloodlust and excess.Some Aeldari were able to see that their now-corrupt society was destroying itself, and fled in disgust; these refugees would settle in the distant, rural colonies of their empire, and would later be known as the Exodites or take to the massive, continent-sized Aeldari craftworlds and sail amidst the stars as merchants and explorers, far from the scenes of hedonistic excess that were destroying the heart of the Aeldari Empire in the galactic northwest.Upon death, the souls of all deceased, self-aware beings traverse the bounds of the physical realm and go to rest within the hyperdimensional realm of psychically-reactive energy that undergirds all of reality known as the Immaterium or Warp. As more and more corrupt Aeldari died, their souls began to coalesce into a larger entity within the Warp, a living representation of the hedonistic corruption that had defined their lives. This growing presence in the Warp caused massive Warp storms to aggregate across the galaxy, eventually making interstellar travel and communications impossible for the colonies of Humanity, bringing on Mankind's Age of Strife.This gestalt collection of corrupt Aeldari souls gained self-awareness sometime in the late 30th Millennium, creating the powerful new Warp entity known as the Chaos God Slaanesh, the Prince of Pleasure, named "She Who Thirsts" by the Aeldari. When Slaanesh came to be, an ethereal explosion occurred that spanned the extent of Warpspace within the Milky Way Galaxy, with the epicentre being located within the Aeldari core homeworlds of the galactic northwest. All Aeldari caught in the immense psychic blast were instantly killed, their souls consumed by Slaanesh, and the surrounding region of space was transformed into a massive, permanent Warp rift later known as the "Eye of Terror" to Humanity. The core Aeldari homeworlds were transformed into the ruined hellscapes today known as "Crone Worlds."Most of the remaining Aeldari gods who themselves existed as entities within the Warp were destroyed by Slaanesh after its cataclysmic birth. Kaela Mensha Khaine, the Aeldari god of war, attempted to combat the new Chaos God, but Khaine's form was shattered and exiled to the mortal realm where it came to rest in the Infinity Circuits of the Asuryani craftworlds but could be embodied in the form of animated constructs called "Avatars", which rested in the hearts of the various craftworlds during times of grave peril.The only other Aeldari gods to survive the Fall were the trickster god Cegorach (also called the "Laughing God"), who hid himself within the Webway, and Isha, who was ripped from the jaws of Slaanesh by the Chaos God Nurgle, who now keeps her as a slave within its hideous garden home within the Realm of Chaos.The Fall utterly destroyed the once vast interstellar Aeldari Empire, leaving scattered bands of Aeldari fighting for survival. Before the Fall, vast voidcraft called craftworlds were constructed, enabling those wishing to escape the degeneration of the Aeldari homeworlds to flee, along with samples of their lost worlds' flora and fauna. When the Fall occurred, the various craftworlds rode out the ethereal shockwave in the Warp, some being destroyed in the process.The Exodite worlds, far from the epicentre of the terrible catastrophe, were largely untouched by the birth-scream of Slaanesh. In order to prevent the events of the Fall from ever recurring, the Aeldari of the craftworlds, who now called themselves the "Asuryani" but were long known as the "Eldar" to outsiders, devised the Asuryani Path system, by which every Craftworld Aeldari would follow a strict, almost fanatical life path pursuing a specific activity, such as crafting or war, for a portion of their long lifespans, before switching to another Path when the previous one grew stale. In this way, the Asuryani hoped to control the extreme emotional and psychic sensitivity that had left them open to corruption by Chaos in the first place.However, some corrupted Aeldari did survive the birth of Slaanesh by taking refuge within the Webway itself. The Webway had long been home to a nearly infinite cavalcade of hyperdimensional sub-realms that were protected from Slaanesh's predations by the psychic wards erected within the Labyrinth Dimension to keep the dangers of the Warp at bay. These sadistic beings became known as the Drukhari or "Dark Eldar" to outsiders, the inhabitants of the vast Dark City within the Webway called Commorragh. The Drukhari later preyed on Humans and Asuryani alike to find souls whose torment and anguish they could psychically devour to keep their own tainted souls from being consumed by Slaanesh.