Drukhari - Dark Origins: Ten thousand Terran years ago, amid the apocalyptic screams of a newborn god, the mighty Aeldari Empire fell to ruin. Yet the architects of this catastrophe were spared the worst of its wrath, hidden deep within the bounds of the Webway. They lurk there still, a race of unrepentant monsters damned to suffer an eternal thirst for the pain of others.The Drukhari have fallen from true grace in the most profound of ways. Their roots as a culture lie at the very height of ancient Aeldari society, when theirs was perhaps the most highly advanced species in the Milky Way Galaxy.The  Aeldari once boasted mastery over an interstellar civilisation that was the greatest seen in the galaxy since that of the Old Ones. The various cultures of the Aeldari that exist today in the 41st Millennium are only shadows of the glory of that ancient Aeldari Empire.The true origins of those who now call themselves the Drukhari can be found in hidden enclaves amidst the atrocity and mayhem of the terrible time of the Fall of the Aeldari, the great cataclysm that nearly destroyed the entire Aeldari species. It was an event so terrible that not only did it kill trillions of Aeldari, but it breached the dimensional barrier between realspace and the Warp, and gave birth to the Chaos God Slaanesh.The ancient Aeldari 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 Aeldari society became nothing but a dim memory of a difficult past. The Aeldari, 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 Aeldari 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 starfaring races of the galaxy, including Mankind. The Aeldari 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 Aeldari Empire -- once the height of civilisation in the known universe -- became centred solely on the pursuit of individual fulfillment and self-gratification.To understand the reasons for the Fall, it is necessary to know something of the Aeldari mind and soul. An Aeldari'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 Aeldari experiences the universe and all its sensations to a greatly heightened degree compared to a Human. Similarly, an Aeldari's soul is much brighter in the Warp than those of "lesser" sentients like Humans who do not possess such potent psychic abilities.The Aeldari are able to affect the nether-realm of the Immaterium much more than most other intelligent peoples. Every Aeldari is a latent psychic and has the ability to become a very powerful psyker with training. It is the psychic strength of the Aeldari's souls that was one of the primary causes of their downfall.Before the Fall, during Humanity's Dark Age of Technology, the Aeldari had an immense galaxy-spanning empire comprising thousands of worlds, and some claim that it was larger and more powerful than even the Imperium of Man at the height of its power.The Aeldari 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 Aeldari 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 Aeldari, had been defeated long before and still remained dormant, in the midst of their Great Sleep.Life on the Aeldari core 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 Aeldari free to indulge in other, more aesthetic pursuits. With all menial work taken care of for them, the Aeldari became indolent and decadent. They began to explore more deeply the arts of pleasure, delving ever deeper into hedonism.This descent into decadence spanned Terran millennia. Tradition and order disintegrated as the Aeldari 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 Aeldari hated what their race had become and left the Aeldari 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 Aeldari were those whose pursuit of excess became ever more extreme. These included a great proportion of the aristocracy of ancient Aeldari 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 Aeldari society became obsessed with their own power and gratification.They relocated their headquarters to the Labyrinth Dimension known as the Aeldari Webway, for so great was their political influence that they could command the construction of entire extradimensional sub-realms just for themselves. Unseen, these Pleasure Cult lords continued to grow in power and influence, initiating more and more of the ancient Aeldari population into their strange and shadowy creeds of decadence.The Aeldari are the most psychically gifted of all sentient beings in the galaxy and as the hedonistic 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 Aeldari Empire nourished and empowered that which lay within -- a nascent god of pleasure and pain, content to wait and to grow.As the Aeldari Empire sank into corruption and decadence, brother turned against brother in pursuit of ever more extreme and darker pleasures. Some of the wiser Aeldari, however, foresaw the disaster that was approaching their society and fled from the Aeldari core worlds to safety.The first of these were the Exodites, who chose to establish a network of Aeldari 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 Aeldari to escape from the empire's core before the Fall were the ancestors of the present day's Craftworld Aeldari. As their society collapsed into civilisation-wide insanity, these Aeldari recoiled in horror from what they were becoming. Realising that they stood upon the brink of destruction, they bent their considerable resources to the construction of the massive craftworlds, the graceful spaceborne cities that were the size of small moons.The Aeldari 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 Aeldari Empire behind 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.Within the Warp, the constant stream of indulgence and depravity pouring from the Aeldari Empire became as unstoppable as a tide. It nourished and empowered that which crystallised at its centre -- a nascent god of excess and amoral pleasure-seeking. The long millennia of Aeldari hedonism had made a massive impact in the psychic realm of Chaos.Within the Warp the decadent Aeldari civilisation was giving shape to a new major power of Chaos, which grew and grew over thousands of Terran years, getting stronger and more defined until suddenly it sparked into a malevolent intelligence -- a shatteringly huge and malign being with an immense and bottomless thirst for Aeldari souls.This was the birth of the Chaos God Slaanesh, the Dark Prince of Pleasure, better known as "She Who Thirsts" to the Aeldari and all their descendants, for to them Slaanesh was inherently female.