Battle of Iyanden - Battle of Iyanden: The Battle of Iyanden occurred in 999.M41 when the forces of Chaos launched a massive invasion of the Aeldari Craftworld of Iyanden.In the wake of the Battle of Biel-Tan and the birth of the Yncarne, the Avatar of Ynnead, the Seers of Ulthwé opened a portal from their Dome of Crystal Seers to its equivalent upon Biel-Tan, destroying the precious and irreplaceable souls of several deceased Farseers within the Ulthwé Infinity Circuit to do so.The sacrifice was deemed necessary to ensure the Ynnari were rescued from becalmed Biel-Tan before the strife they had sown saw the craftworld consumed in the fires of civil war between those who accepted Ynnead's message and those enraged by the damage the Ynnari had done to their home by calling forth the Yncarne.The Ynnari were called to account by Ulthwé's Seer Council, as was Eldrad Ulthran, for his arrogance in co-opting the psyches of generations of dead Aeldari was beyond countenance. Emissaries from Craftworld Altansar spoke in the Ynnari's defence, revealing that Ynnead's nascent consciousness had a hand in allowing them to survive their craftworld's millennia-long ordeal in the Eye of Terror.The trial became ever more heated as courtly negotiations turned to veiled threats, then to open hostility and even psychic attack. Only the intervention of no less a Seer than Kysaduras the Anchorite, unseen for generations, prevented the council from kinstrife of the worst kind.The Ynnari and their new Ulthwéan allies, accompanied by the Altansari, were allowed to leave on the proviso that they ventured into the Eye of Terror, never to return.Following a rumour regarding the location of the last Croneswords needed to complete the Seventh Path ritual that will fully awaken Ynnead to consciousness in the Warp, the Ynnari took their crusade through the perils of the Eye of Terror to the Crone World of Belial IV.Its once-luxurious Aeldari cities had long been toppled by the powers of Chaos, for the world was at the heart of the Aeldari Empire at the time of the Fall of the Aeldari. To venture there was to risk the worst doom of all under the claws of Slaanesh, but Yvraine believed it was worth the potential cost -- legend stated that should all five Croneswords be united, Ynnead's power would be bolstered beyond measure and the destruction of She Who Thirsts might be at hand.Though many of Yvraine's Reborn were slain en route to the world through the Webway, and then, after planetfall, still more at the hands of the daemons that prowled that ruined hellscape, it was the Drukhari covenite forces of the Haemonculi that saw her quest grind to a halt.Sent by Asdrubael Vect and his allies in Commorragh to eke out a terrible revenge upon Yvraine for the daemonic dysjunction that befell the Dark City after the Night of Revelations, they used all manner of vile technologies to attack the Ynnari.The carnage drew a Slaaneshi Soul Hunt to their location. A three-way battle broke out in which Yvraine and her faithful throng were trapped and suffering -- but the key to their victory was close at hand, for one of the fabled Croneswords was indeed buried nearby.When the Yncarne manifested from the deathly energies of the battle, it rose from the tortured ground holding that deadly blade, Vilith-zhar, the Sword of Souls, and turned the tide against the daemons and the Drukhari alike.However, unknown to the Ynnari the fifth and final Cronesword was no longer on Belial IV. Slaanesh freed its Keeper of Secrets Shalaxi Hellbane from the Palace of Punishments in the Realm of Chaos and ordered it to prevent the awakening of Ynnead and foil the plans of the Ynnari. The daemon travelled to Belial IV and stole the fifth Cronesword before the Ynnari could claim it, placing it far from the reach of the servants of Ynnead in the Palace of Slaanesh.A Wraithknight-led delegation from Craftworld Iyanden reinforced the Ynnari before the Slaaneshi horde could once more close the noose on the Ynnari. The Iyanden had read the runes of fate, divining that a critical moment of galactic history would occur upon Belial IV.Well-versed in the hidden ways of the Crone Worlds from their Spirit Stone harvests within the Eye of Terror, the Iyanden force led the Ynnari through a hidden Webway portal to the battle-scarred world-ship of Iyanden.At the same the Ynnari had arrived at the craftworld, the forces of Chaos attacked from the newborn Great Rift all across the galaxy, and Craftworld Iyanden was no exception to their assault. Even as Yvraine was held as an "honoured guest" -- in effect a prisoner -- by the rightfully cautious leaders of Iyanden, the craftworld was assailed by a Nurglite Plague Fleet.From her sumptuous cell, Yvraine sent a psychic summons to a nearby Aeldari Corsair fleet that she had once commanded, and within a matter of solar days it joined the battle. Together with the Royal Armada of Iyanden and the Eldritch Raiders Corsairs under the command of Prince Yriel, the fleet prevented the Nurglite ships from reaching the craftworld.The famous Corsair-turned-Autarch led a boarding action into the depths of the Nurglite flagship, a Daemon Engine of colossal size known to the Aeldari as the Spawn of Oghanothir. He plunged the Spear of Twilight into the heart of that rotting hulk, killing the daemonic creature within it that empowered the horrid vessel, but paid for it with his life, smashed to ruin by a blow from the Daemon Prince Gara'gugul'gor.Prince Yriel's body was recovered and brought back to Iyanden, there to be lain in state. However, the corpse was infested with a virulent daemonic disease that could potentially lie low the entire population of the craftworld.Fortunately, the Spiritseer Iyanna Arienal allowed Yvraine into Yriel's mausoleum. There, she burned out the arcane plague with the psychic energies of death before claiming Yriel's Spear of Twilight -- in actuality the fourth of the Croneswords she sought -- and resurrecting the prince with the power of Ynnead's rebirth.Iyanden's course through history was altered forever by this fell time. In the wake of the craftworld's salvation, its Farseers cast their runes, but now the dwindling threads of potential that had seemed to throttle their future unravelled into a dozen different futures and more.A council of Aeldari elders gathered in the aftermath of Yriel's resurrection. Together they discussed the new doom that faced the galaxy.After long debate they came to the conclusion that only by giving the teeming masses of Humanity a fighting chance to hurl back the forces of the ascendant Ruinous Powers could they avert a doom that would see the Aeldari species suffer and die.The Ynnari, now bolstered by a large contingent from Iyanden, braved the shattered spars of the Webway once more, and prepared to face the next trial in their great quest.