Malan'tai - The Fall of the Eldar: Ten Terran millennia ago the once proud empire of the Aeldari reached the pinnacle of its achievement and began its slow slide into decadence, corruption, and ultimate destruction. The proud and haughty Aeldari saw themselves as the perfect race, above the squalor and petty squabbling of the "lesser races" of the galaxy. They had mastered technology and tamed the Webway, transcended the need for toil and suffering, and their worlds were peaceful and rich with art and music.Unfortunately, as pride goes before a fall, the arrogance and hubris of the Aeldari slowly ate away at the heart of their glorious empire. Aeldari society turned decadent and depraved, the people filling their ample leisure with dark excesses. Not all Aeldari in these dark times became gibbering sybarites devoted only to pleasure and excess, however. There were those who foresaw the disastrous end that was coming.These Aeldari, derided as self-punishing puritanical fanatics by their brethren, built massive, continent-sized starships with which to flee the depravity of their people. These vessels, called Craftworlds by their masters, fled to the furthest reaches of space with numerous like-minded Exodites. It was in these out-of-the-way places that the Exodites believed they would be safe from both the excesses of their brethren and the coming doom that they had foreseen.Eventually, the sheer depravity and excess of Aeldari society brought about the birth of the Chaos God Slaanesh. With a mighty scream and a burst of pure psychic power, Slaanesh came forth from the Warp and destroyed the Aeldari Empire in an instant. Billions died in agony, their souls devoured by Slaanesh. This event created the Eye of Terror, a massive tear in reality where the Warp and realspace co-exist, and it swallowed the seat of Aeldari society whole.Even the far-flung Exodites who had fled their peoples' slide into madness, and the people and crew of the numerous Craftworlds, heard the cries of Slaanesh's coming. Sadness filled their hearts at the loss of their kinsmen and their once great civilisation. The Aeldari felt resignation as well, for they knew that there was nothing that they could do, and that this fate was their final punishment. The Craftworlds with their refugees scattered to the solar winds, hounded across the galaxy by the Forces of Chaos.Few survived the initial solar decades as they were caught and killed in the psychic fallout of the birth of Slaanesh. The rest dispersed, traversing the stars and carrying their precious cargo -- those lucky few who survived the Fall of the Aeldari -- to the farthest reaches of the galaxy.As they travelled and the Terran centuries passed, the Craftworlds slowly took on their final shape. They grew in size to meet the needs of their populations, the Bonesingers reshaping the vessels into something more akin to wandering planetoids than mere starships.Each Craftworld became a world unto itself. Even before the Fall each Craftworld had developed unique cultures among their populations, foreshadowing the manifold Paths and Aspects that the Aeldari would soon come to follow. Some were dedicated to martial prowess while others were more content to contemplate the mysteries of the vast unknown.